New Relationships
by ClancyEnthusiast
Summary: Drew is in love, and unable to do anything about it. Mitch is ashamed, forced to kill to survive. Two years later, their stories will collide in an explosive turn of events when a drug lord decides to kill all those opposing him. Rated for violence.
1. Depression

A/N: Wow, it's surprising to find myself posting this old piece of work once again. Considering the long amount of time this story has been absent, I figure an explanation would help. This is an old contestshipping fic I was writing a while ago, like around two years ago, that ended up getting scrapped due to loss of interest and slow progress. I knew I'd never get around to finishing it, so I decided to pull it off the site and delete it. Well, after a _long _time in what movie-goers might call "developement hell" it's back in decent quality. I've rewritten the story a couple times over now, and I think I've finally established a good atmosphere. As stated in the summary, this story focuses on two major plotlines. On one hand, you have everyone's favorite green-haired trainer Drew trying to cope with his growing infatuation with May. On the other, you have a fellow named Mitchell Emerson, a brutal teenager with a lone-wolf attitude. Both of these characters have their own trials and struggles they'll endure over the course of the story, until their stories meet and spin out of control in a violent and romantic turn of events. Some readers may remember reading this rather lackluster story a while back, especially if you like the whole May/Drew pairing, and spend time searching for contestshipping fics. What brought this fic out of retirement was a bad case of writer's block I'm experiencing with the novel I'm writing. As usual, fanfiction offered a break from the story and a practical cure for the loss of inspiration. What drew me to this particular fic over the two years that it was missing was that I always felt I could do better. So, without further ado, enjoy this rather dark and gritty pokemon fanfiction, finally returning after such a long time of absence, better than ever!

-Chapter One-

Depression

He didn't know what it was at first, this effect she had on him. It had started years before, manifesting itself through a simple twinge on his heartstrings, incurred by even the most fleeting glance of her adorable visage. Then, over their years of acquaintanceship and fierce competition, it grew. Before long it had become something so powerful, that Drew had come it fear it as a threat to his coordinating skill. May began to win contests against him, taking advantage of his scrambled thoughts. Out of nowhere she'd look at him right before their matches. Just a simple look, as if a gesture of respect and a wish for good luck. But the effect, which had spent their time apart growing stronger and more evident, would appear and render him an incoherent mess, unable to perform well with the image of her stunning features etched into his mind. And so she would win, gaining many a ribbon over him. Eventually, he'd managed to let the Grand Festival slip through his fingers, falling short of her newfound skill over him.

Indeed, Drew Thorndale was confused, and possibly a little scared. What could be so powerful as to render him helpless during a contest? And what could it have to do with May Montevale? He'd only recently admitted to himself that he'd become infatuated with her, but how could a simple crush become so powerful. It was like her mere presence could make him melt. At first, he figured it might have been love, but he refused to be that naïve. Teenagers didn't fall in love, their hormones instead being geared towards lust and more superficial attractions. Knowing this, he'd quickly come to the conclusion that he was definitely _not_ in love with May.

But that raised the question of what caused him to become a stuttering, incompetent, helpless mess whenever she was around him. Could it be the puppy love that he'd harbored for her since they'd met in Hoenn? Or was it something much deeper, more complex? Drew didn't know, and the idea of not knowing scared the hell out of him. So, he'd decided one day, he would need to find out. Without another thought, he'd looked up her parents, introducing himself as a "friend" of May's, and asking where it was she'd gone off to, now that her brother Max had embarked on his own adventure as a trainer. That was what had lead him to the Kanto Region, home of May's best friend Ash Ketchum, where a new set of contests was beginning for coordinators all around. He planned to find her, confront her, and confess whatever it was he felt in the hopes that she could fill in the blanks herself. It was true: he'd become desperate.

* * *

Actually finding May herself was harder than Drew had anticipated. Kanto was huge, spanning several hundred kilometers and consisting of several towns. These all included gyms, battlegrounds for trainers to test their skill, but useless nonetheless for coordinators, who commonly had no interest in serious fighting competition. Coordinators, like May and Drew, chose to compete through contests of style and, for lack of a better term, coordination.

He'd asked around upon arriving in the Kanto Region, soon learning that May had gone to Commerce City, a large sprawl of civilization with a small park. After finding his way from where he'd arrived in Porta Vista, Drew ended up in the city's pokémon center. A brief conversation with a reluctant Nurse Joy got him her room number, and also the fact that she was residing there with a friend. Dismissing it as one of her pals tagging along while she attended contests around the region, Drew made his way to the upper floor and was somewhat surprised to see the very door he was walking towards opening inwardly.

"So where are we going next?" He heard a delicate feminine voice ask from inside the room down the hall, and recognized it foremost by the buckle in his knees at the sound of every enunciation. Seconds later he saw her flawless figure step out of the room, and felt his words get stuck in his throat. What would he say to her? Would she be happy to see him, or annoyed?

His elation and nervousness died down, just in time to see her lips being taken by those of a certain raven haired teenager. One who Drew knew to have traveled with her all over Hoenn, and one who he hadn't considered to be romantically involved with the object of _his _affections. It was Ash Ketchum, and he'd just made it to the top of Drew's enemies list.

"Son of a..." Was all he'd been able to murmur before the two of them parted, and then that was when she saw him. At first, he saw surprise sweep across her face, before the glint in her eyes returned and she smiled, waving innocently at him from down the hall.

"Drew! Hi!" May called, before running down the hall towards the place where he was standing, just slightly open mouthed and wide-eyed at the sight he'd witnessed. She left her boyfriend―he prayed to God they were just dating―to close and lock the door to their room while she stopped in front of her old rival. "What are you doing here?"

She almost hadn't recognized him. In the amount of time it had been since they'd last competed, Drew had grown perhaps an inch or two. His usual purple jacket had been replaced by a very nice suede brown one, with sleeves that were maybe just a bit too long. Below him was a pair of jeans with a simple black belt and conservative buckle. His face was more or less the same, still easily recognizable, despite the fact that the rest of his outfit betrayed his old look.

It occurred to Drew that he had to come up with an adequate answer to her question, lest she think he was actually there looking for her. At seeing her kiss her old partner, the confidence had been sucked right out of the thirteen-year-old, and his only desire was to quickly and politely end their brief meeting and slink away to whatever hole he'd crawled out of to come see her. "Oh nothing." He lied. "Just checking out the sights around here. Kanto's a nice place."

"Are you going to be competing?" She asked him while Ash walked up quietly behind her, placing a gentle hand on her shoulder that sickened the green-haired boy to the gut. For a split second, Drew thought he'd seen excitement reach her beautiful features, and the lump in his throat promptly reappeared. "It'd be fun to catch up and compete together again."

Left without anything to say, he simply nodded his head with a pitiful smile that denied what he felt inside. "Yeah. Just scouting around, looking for a place to train and all that." He swallowed hard. "What about you?"

"Same thing pretty much." She responded in that casual happiness that would have been contagious under any other circumstances. May had an uncanny ability to make those around her happy with her uplifting persona, but Drew had fallen in so deep an emotional hole that not even her peppiest attitude could pull him out. "Me and Ash are just waiting until the first contest. It's going to be nearby you know!"

"You know, I don't believe we've really met." Ash smiled and held out his hand. "Ash Ketchum."

Drew stared at his gloved hand and for a brief second, wondered if refusing it would reveal the bitterness he now felt inside. Deciding against it, more out of his respect for May, he shook the equally eccentric teenager's hand with a limp movement before clearing his throat. "Drew Thorndale. Nice to..." He struggled. "Nice to meet you too. You're her..." He let his voice trail.

"Boyfriend." And with that all of Drew's hope sunk, lower than the floor below his feet. He managed another weak smile before concluding the conversation with: "Well it's nice to meet you Ash. I'd like to stay and catch up with you two, but I've got to get to my room."

Both accepted the excuse without a second thought, and May bid him farewell before she and her new boyfriend walked―hand in hand―to the stairs, disappearing as they traversed them down to the first floor. Drew's legs managed to bring him several feet further. Stopping right in front of the wall at the end of the short corridor, he turned and fell against it, sinking slowly to a sitting position, letting his arms go limp on the floor. Then he sighed heavily, letting his mind sink into a darkened corner of depression. And sitting there, Drew Thorndale thought: what besides love could hurt this much?

* * *

Across the Atlantic in a particularly seedy Florida resort city, another teenager of the same age was just as miserable, though his mental gutter had nothing to do with love or anything of the sort. Mitchell Emerson was sad at the pathetic state his life had fallen in. He didn't exactly match the superficial profile of a teenage drug dealer, racially, psychologically, or physically. But there was one thing he had in common with all those other lost souls in the same profession. He'd very recently, a few months prior, suffered a tragedy that had left him with no one to care for him. Mitch had no home, no family, no reason for living. The only thing keeping him functional was the will to survive in a world he'd proven himself worthy of prospering in.

Drug lords Armando and Diego Mendez had been reluctant to take him into their ring, the Mendez Cartel. But from what Mitch had heard at the time, they were shorthanded on account of the fierce gang war they'd been fighting with neighboring pushers. So, they'd allowed him to make some cash selling drugs on the corners of downtown Vice City. But when he'd come back one night with triple the profits they'd figured he'd produce, he was given a chance at the bigger stuff. He'd rode along with some Mendez Cartel heavies on a high-profile deal with Ricardo Diaz, a rival drug baron who'd offered to make peace with the brothers by purchasing ten kilos of cocaine from their cartel. That had gone to hell pretty quickly, ending with a hail of bullets that Mitch had survived. Then he shocked them all. Mitch Emerson returned to the Mendez mansion on Prawn Island that night with all but one of the men he'd accompanied, in addition to a briefcase full of money that the Diaz goons had never planned on handing over in the first place. Netting that cash had earned the teenager a place within the Mendez Cartel that few _men_ had ever been trusted with. He was now in charge of overseeing the security for all major deals.

Mitch had never wanted to be a drug dealer. His ability to thrive in the "snow business" stemmed from his sharp intellect and skill with a firearm, both of which being things he'd gained from time spent with his father, a Pittsburgh police lieutenant. But this, like many things he now did as a routine part of life in Vice City, made him ashamed and, as a result, he spent little time trying to remember his family. Instead, thirteen-year-old Mitch wanted to forget the father who loved him at one time, and who'd made his son proud to call him "dad." And so, the cell phone which he'd carried over from his previous, normal life, was thrown away. It was a gift from his father, which he never wished to see again, lest he remember how much shame he'd brought to his family through his so-called "survival."

"Yo! Pay attention kid!" The thick Latin accent was enough to ram Mitch off his mental trail, face-first into the side rails of reality. It was Hugo, the Peruvian enforcer for the Mendez Cartel, whom Mitch actually got along with, unlike the rest of the cartel goons. Experience quickly informed the teenager that grown men who made a living off murder and killing didn't like to be told what to do by someone who they figured hadn't even hit puberty yet. Hugo, while still possessing that same smug attitude, was a little easier going. "C'mon! That sharp head of yours isn't going to be any good to us with a hole in it!"

Mitch grunted his response. "Duly noted. Keep driving." The deal they were out for that night was to take place in a armpit of a cul de sac in the heart of Little Haiti. The place was a hole, much more decrepit and dilapidated than the neighboring Little Havana to the south. Moreover, it was dangerous, serving as the stomping ground for Vice City's treacherous Haitian gang, which operated under the leadership of their matriarch, Auntie Poulet. Staying still in such a place, in the dead of night, could be lethal, and the Volkswagen they rode in didn't go very fast in the first place.

For temporary reassurance, Mitch touched his hand to the butt of his pistol, safely in a holster on his belt. The Browning Hi-Power was loaded, with a round in the chamber, and the safety engaged. On a moment's notice, Mitch could draw the pistol, needing only thumb the safety lever before squeezing the trigger. He'd always fancied guns, something that put some of his friends from his past life on edge. Many times he'd accompanied his father to a rifle range they both liked, and it was there that he'd learned to shoot. Of course, he pushed these thoughts away as he realized where it was taking him. And soon, his father and his old life, his _normal _life, were gone from his mind, replaced by the constant state of caution he'd learned to adopt in Vice City.

Hugo pulled the Volkswagen onto the small, beat up street that lead down to the cul de sac, flashing his hazard lights to let the other car following behind know that they were almost to their destination. The four-door sedan stopped a minute or so later, and the two men in the back, armed with Uzi submachine guns, got out first. Hugo rubbed his bushy black mustache before reaching under his seat and pulling out his own weapon, a Remington 870 shotgun, with the barrel sawed off for more maneuverability in tight quarters. The brawny Peruvian then fished two rifled slugs out of his jacket pocket and loaded them into the weapon, before pumping the forward grip. "You gonna be okay in here kid?" Hugo was a nice guy to people he liked. Mitch had been a bit flattered at first by the idea. The drug runner was almost like an estranged... Mitch didn't let his thoughts get any further.

"Yeah. You guys just try not to screw this up!" He shot back with what had once resembled a smile. Mitch had lost his smile months ago.

Hugo scoffed in that way that he did whenever he was trying to sound like a tough guy, before kicking open the driver's side door and stepping out of the small sedan, closing it quickly behind him as he walked out with the rest of the men from the car behind them. Overall there were eight Mendez personnel out on this deal, Mitch being one of them. The rest, with the exception of Hugo and his shotgun, were all armed with 9mm SMGs. The teenager had been sure to get Armando, the smarter and more charismatic of the two Mendez brothers, to get better weapons for the men since the incident with Diaz and his cronies. It was by Mitch's own personal preference that he was armed only with a pistol. He was quicker with them, and in any combat situation, even gangland, a split second could mean the difference between life and death, the latter of which Mitch sometime wished for.

Already the Haitians were trying to instigate a fight. Mitch counted five or six of the dark-skinned gang members, all wearing the uniform purple shirt or sweater with tan khaki pants. None of them paid attention to the teenager in the Volkswagen. Another of the advantages of being a young drug dealer: no one really suspected much out of him. It was a common occurrence that his enemies _and _allies would underestimate him. More than once people had ended up dead on account of that fatal flaw.

Mitch noted one of the Haitians flailing his arms about, obviously complaining about the prices of the Mendez Cartel, or something to that effect. More important was the small bulge in his purple tee shirt. _This one's armed with just a pistol, it looks like. But these guys are too paranoid to just bring handguns. Who's got the big guns?_ His eyes scanned the other dark-skinned males, looking for their weapons. One or two had their arms behind their backs, in the way that a soldier standing at a parade rest might have. It was hard to see in the darkness but―yes! Mitch easily noticed the distinct shape of a a TEC-9's barrel. _So the Haitians have SMGs too? We still outgun them, but this could still get real ugly, real fast._

By the looks of things, Mitch figured it might. The angry Haitian was now cursing in his native patois, before suddenly growing silent and backing away. Then he screamed something, a single word, and double timed it backwards.

The teenager saw it first, before any of the big, tough, arrogant Latino men he'd come with. One of the Haitians who'd been poorly hiding his TEC-9 behind his back now brought the weapon up in one hand, slower than he should have. He'd been trying to be tough about it, looking macho as he took aim at Hugo with the 9mm weapon. It was a pathetic gesture that cost him his life. Mitch was out of the Volkswagen in seconds, drawing the Hi-Power before cradling it in both hands. Already the safety was disengaged, and he had the sights lined up perfectly with the shooter's head.

Mitch squeezed the trigger two times, in what those in the military profession called a "double-tap." Two shots in quick succession, aimed at the head, intended to quickly drop and neutralize a target without having to worry about him or her being simply wounded by the shot. It worked like a charm on this Haitian, and before the slide on his pistol had locked into place, Mitch saw the Haitian's head snap back in a ugly pink mist, before his joints gave out and his body crumpled like a beer can.

It was enough to alert Hugo, who was just as fast as his teenage associate in bringing up his shotgun. Already it was level with the big angry Haitian who'd screaming profanities. The shocked look on his face was enough satisfaction, and Hugo fired once into the poor bastard's chest. The shotgun pellets spread wide, a result of the sawed off barrel, ravaging the Haitian's upper torso and tearing apart his heart and lungs. He fell back as though hit with a murderously hard punch, bleeding profusely all over the pavement, in a gasping, choking, dying mess. Hugo jumped back a few feet, swiveling his shotgun left and firing his second and last slug at another Haitian. His target was too far this time though, and did little more than sting him from the pellet's impact.

What followed was a loud, chaotic frenzy of gunfire and swearing. The Mendez goons had the upper hand at first, having more men and better firearms. The six Haitians, who'd been narrowed to four thanks to brutally precise shots by Mitch and Hugo, were massacred quickly. The one who'd been carrying two briefcases full of cash went down without a fight, having been unable to draw his weapon due to being stuck carrying their payment. Once his remaining friends were killed by a flurry of 9mm bullets from the several Uzis firing at them, one of the braver Mendez heavies jogged out to claim the briefcases full of money. When he opened them, he was surprised to find both empty, and immediately he stood to rejoin the rest of his pals. The entire deal had been a setup, designed to steal the Mendez Cartel's drugs and kill their men.

They hadn't even realized exactly how much of a setup it had been, until the head of the man who'd run out to check the briefcases burst like a ripe melon from a prolonged burst of heavy automatic weapons fire. As though they'd disturbed a hornets nest, dozens of Haitians armed with AKM Russian assault rifles rushed the eight Mendez drug dealers, firing wildly at them.

Mitch was shocked at first, and raised his Browning to aim at one, dropping him with three well-placed shots that caught the angry Haitian square in the chest. Without another thought he spun to the left, and fired three times again, with the same result. He took a second to look over the hood of the Volkswagen to see how Hugo was holding up.

The big Peruvian had struggled to reload his shotgun, shoving another two slugs in hastily before aiming it again as he backed up towards their car. He'd only fired once before a 7.62 rifle round from one of the Haitian's brutal AKMs struck his leg right beside the femur, brining him crashing down with a strangled gasp.

Mitch was fast to act, bolting around the rear of the Volkswagen and firing blindly at the attacking Haitians, suppressing their deadly advance so he could help the Peruvian enforcer to his feet. As he grasped the upper left arm of the wounded Hugo, he raised his Hi-Power and fired one more shot before his .40 Smith and Wesson magazine ran dry. Cursing loudly, he lifted Hugo in the direction of the Volkswagen's driver's side door before hitting the mag release on his handgun. As his associate clambered to seat himself in the vehicle, Mitch pulled another thirteen round box magazine from his belt and pushed it up into the well before racking the slide and taking aim. One Haitian had taken advantage of his lack of ammo, getting a little too close for comfort. Mitch shot him twice in the head in an accurate double-tap. As his body dropped backwards, the Haitian's finger depressed on the trigger of his rifle in a posthumous twitch, firing a random volley of shots that happened to strike one of the Mendez thugs, killing him. Swearing yet again, Mitch lined up another shot and fired once more, before turning to run around to the passenger's side of the Volkswagen―

―only to see it driving off down the cul de sac, the other following closely behind it. It was hard for the teenager to fathom, but his so-called "friends" had left him, with a dozen Haitians running towards him with assault rifles. Standing there, shocked, Mitch looked up in time to see death coming, and decided he wouldn't go out quietly.

Firing three times at one of the several remaining Haitian goons, Mitch promptly cut him down and focused the sights on his pistol over another target. Right then one of his enemies managed a lucky shot, placing a round in Mitch's right shoulder, leaving the teenager's shooting arm worthless. The pistol dropped from his hand, and the shock of the impact forced him onto his behind, falling onto the pavement. With the rest of the dark-skinned males rushing towards him, Mitch was smart enough to apply pressure to the bullet hole right below his shoulder blade. Then, just as he was sure he was about to die before even reaching the modest age of fourteen, Mitch Emerson heard a sound he'd heard so many times before, but never really appreciated.

The blaring monotone of approaching police sirens.

Two VCPD patrol cars whirled around the corner him and his Latino pals had entered through, screaming down the street into the cul de sac, before screeching to a halt several yards away. Obviously responding to the gunfire, four police officers leaped out of the cars before a third came onto the scene. Firing their pistols with equal precision as the bleeding teenager nearby, the cops were quick to disperse the angry Haitians, clearing a way to the boy, who slipped out of consciousness just as they reached him, his last thought being a cry for forgiveness that his father would never hear.

* * *

The grassy hill near Commerce City was quiet enough to allow Drew to ponder his thoughts. He'd come to the Kanto Region with the sole intent of confessing his crush to May, hoping that maybe then, with everything out in the open, things would start to make sense. Now he was heartbroken, or as close to it as an awkward teenager could get. He'd been too slow, and now the girl he yearned for was out making out with her long-time friend. If it didn't hurt so much, he might have had the selflessness to feel happy for them, but the sting of rejection was too strong to allow such feelings.

Lying on his back, he spent the better half of that night staring up at the clouds, and then the stars after nightfall. He'd summoned Roserade to keep him company in his emotional rut, and now both he and his pokémon companion were resting on the hill in the hopes that time would heal the wound Drew had suffered. A wound that, though not as gruesome as a gunshot, was just as painful.

"I love her don't I?" He asked Roserade, though he would have accepted an answer from the stars would they have given him one. He turned to face the green creature, who responded with a movement its owner could only assume was a nod. It was a hard conclusion to come to, especially given the fact that Drew found it impossible. He was a hopeless romantic, and proud of it, but the idea of he himself being in love was something that scared him, though he realized it didn't matter now. The girl he supposedly loved was dating someone else, and that left him alone to contemplate his powerful affection. Without another thought, he stared back up at the stars once more. "Damn."

A few hours later, Drew packed up what few things he'd brought with him on his trip, and spent the rest of the night traveling back to Porta Vista, where he arrived the next morning. Having traded sleep for the chance to cover more ground, he bought tickets for the next ferry back to his home in Hoenn. Some hours later, Drew fell asleep and spent the entire trip dreaming of what his so-called "love" could have blossomed into, had he not forfeited his chance to Ash Ketchum.

A/N: And so there you have it. The revised and reworked rendition of an old failure than never really died. I hope anyone who read this enjoyed it, and if you did (or especially if you didn't) review. All it takes is a moment of your time to explain what was liked and what was not. I accept all criticism with an odd enthusiasm. Just, as usual, please refrain from any useless trash talk, commonly known as flaming. If you have nothing productive to say then don't say anything at all. I'll look forward to any reviews, and will update the story as soon as possible. But please, do not expect a routine update schedule. Having my work dictated often keeps me from producing any quality work, so please be patient if you want another chapter.


	2. Out of Exile

A/N: First off, let me begin by saying that nobody should expect updates this frequently. This second chapter is going up so quickly only because I've had pretty much nothing to do for the past couple days, so I spent a lot of the time working on this fanfic. That being said, I hope everyone who reads this chapter enjoys it, but I know that probably won't be. Frankly, I used this chapter for one main reason, and that's to introduce some of the characters in better perspective, though mainly my original ones. (For example, the fellow you met in the last chapter: Mitch.) Since I don't believe there's anything else to really say about it, I now present you with the second chapter of New Relationships and, as I've already stated, I hope you enjoy it.

-Chapter Two-

Out of Exile

Drew read the flier with just slightly exaggerated enthusiasm. An island that had been slowly forming over a hundred or so years, about a hundred miles or so off the southern coast of the Kanto Region, had just been declared by the United Nations as a separate territory, now christened the Amber Region. Apparently, it had already been fully colonized, with several towns and cities having been constructed over the past two years. Already they were advertising it as a Region made for coordinators, featuring contests as the only official form of pokémon competition.

"Doesn't it sound great?" His mother, Margaret, asked while trying to decided which earrings she'd wear that night. Drew's mother had always been something of a character. Being the wife of a wealthy businessman, she'd taken the role of arm candy with a pride many other women wouldn't even have bothered faking. Though she loved her son with all her heart, many times she'd be out attending fundraisers or gala dinners with his father. It was a harmless crime that Drew had long since forgiven her for. His mother was who she was, and as long as she loved him, he was fine with however she spent her time. Besides, he was more than old enough to look after himself. "I know you've been in that rut since that May girl rejected you, but this is something you'll thank me for. I know my son."

"It _is_ tempting." He allowed. Since he'd lost May to Ash, Drew had fallen into a state of prolonged inactivity. Eventually the loss had passed him by, and he'd gotten over his depression, but it had come at a price. He'd lost the will to continue on with his competing, and so in the two years that had passed, he'd stayed at home in La Rousse and simply spent the time with his family. Now fifteen years old, Drew felt he was ready to leave home again, and embark on another journey, in the hopes that he would be able to put his failure at young love behind him. "When's the first contest?"

"Two weeks." His mother answered from across the living room coffee table. Sure enough, when Drew read the small print on the bottom of the multi-colored flier, he saw the date exactly two weeks from that day. Lowering the flier in his hands and leaning back to stare up at the ceiling, he didn't have to contemplate it for long.

"Okay, I'll do it." He answered, delivering the exact answer his mom had been hoping for. "I'll leave tomorrow and take a plane or something."

Margaret Thorndale clasped her hands together and almost squealed with happiness. "Fantastic! I'll tell your father in a little while." As usual, she continued into the same over-involved rant she recited every time Drew decided to leave for a new region, prompting her son to roll his eyes. "Now, don't wait until tomorrow to pack your things, and make sure you train hard, otherwise you might not win!"

"Mom, I'll be fine." He assured her, reaching for the remote to change the television channel. "I've done this plenty of times before. Really, don't you have any confidence in my ability to handle myself away from home?"

"Of course dear!" She responded, almost offended at the idea of her son not trusting her faith in him. "I know you'll succeed in everything you put your mind to. I'm simply trying to help that's all."

Ten minutes later, his mother left the house, leaving her fifteen-year-old son to ponder his thoughts alone. He stared at the flier as Absol trotted into the room from Drew's bedroom. When at home, Drew constantly let his pokémon roam around the house. They were all tame and trustworthy, and it was good to let them out of their poké balls every now and then. The advertisement promised good competition and a challenging line up of coordinators, something it really couldn't do until the actual tournament began. Still, it was tempting enough that he'd accepted its bold challenge. Two weeks from now he'd be back in the game, not even bothering to consider that he might be seeing his lost love yet again. A few seconds later, Absol lowered himself to a sitting position at the foot of the sofa Drew was relaxing on, and its trainer obliged in petting the creature affectionately for the remainder of the TV program.

* * *

Mitch adjusted the silver bars of his captain insignia with care, making sure they matched exactly with uniform protocol instituted by GUN and its Youth Action Directorate. On every previous night, he'd taken care not to reflect on the events that had lead to his induction to the Guardian Units of Nations and their combat wing, but today was one of the days when he simply had to marvel at the _second_ turn his life had taken. He had a job now, an honorable job, one which made him no longer ashamed of living himself. _Captain_ Mitchell Emerson was a commando in the Youth Action Directorate of GUN, an experimental echelon of the NATO sponsored organization, designed to incorporate younger, more malleable individuals to the life of modern combat and ground warfare. Essentially, it was a faction of GUN that trained and deployed teenage commandos to combat terrorism around the world. Not just any high school student could join, however. The minimum age was thirteen, and in order to be a possible candidate for the YAD, one had to have been robbed of his family and home, and must possess some useful skill or ability that can be helpful in the field. Mitch suited both requirements perfectly.

After being left for dead during a drug deal gone wrong, Mitch had been detained by the VCPD and interrogated by the police. Apparently, they knew who he was, because they were able to successfully link him to Armando Mendez's drug operations. After refusing to cooperate during the interview, Mitch had been turned over to the FBI, who took a vastly different approach. The agents at the bureau took great interest in Mitch's apparent "survival skills" and offered him an ultimatum. It was then, in that tiny holding cell in the FBI's Florida office, that Mitch had learned about GUN and the Youth Action Directorate. His choices were made simple by the GUN representative who'd flown out to meet with him: join them, or face jail time in a Florida prison. Mitch, seeing it as a chance to redeem his life, accepted the offer. That night, he was flown to Hereford in the United Kingdom, the headquarters and garrison of GUN.

That was two years ago. Having already spent a lot of his life admiring and studying the military and firearms, Mitch was able to breeze through basic training. Since the Youth Action Directorate consisted of so few personnel, the chain of command in the teenage operatives was easy to ascend at first. A year after graduating from training, Mitch had already become a master sergeant, serving the international community in a full squadron of four teens just like him. After helping save his fair share of hostages and whatnot, Mitch was promoted, over the course of a year, from master sergeant to 2nd and then 1st lieutenant and finally to captain. Now, he was to be placed in charge of his own squadron, leading his own clandestine operations against terror.

Standing before the full-length mirror near the back of his "office" located in the of the second of five barracks used by the YAD, Mitch checked his dress uniform for any noticeable flaw. There were none: his tie was straight and adjusting to just the right length, his shoes had been shined and laced perfectly, and his insignia was set in the optimal position on his collar. Clearing his throat before stepping to stand behind his desk, he called out: "Next!" This was followed by two solid _bang_s on the big metal door of his office. "Enter!" He added a moment later.

A British teenager with short cropped hair marched into Mitch's office, taking the most direct path to stop a foot away from the captain's desk. "2nd Lieutenant Edward Stone reporting as ordered _sir_!" He shouted, while delivering a fine open-palm salute customary in the United Kingdom. Mitch returned in respectable fashion. The lieutenant was about four feet and six inches tall; short for his age of fifteen. His short hair was brown, cutting off to leave his forehead bare, while it tapered off near his ears. He met the YAD's grooming standards perfectly. Not a strand of facial hair to fuss over.

"At ease." For Mitch, it was a great honor to be called "sir" and to be regarded with such respect by people of equal age and ability. Especially considering the horrible low his life had just recovered from a couple years prior. "Tell me about yourself lieutenant."

Eddie nodded and sighed. "Well sir, I joined the Youth Action Directorate about a year and a half ago. I grew up in London, and I guess you could say I'm a bookworm type." Mitch nodded as he surveyed Eddie's appearance. The fifteen year old London native looked the part. His medical records stated he'd abandoned prescription glasses in favor of contact lenses, and his face showed the youthful features of a teenager. His own uniform was near identical to Mitch's since they were both officers, though with a varying salad bar of ribbons. Eddie Stone had taken part in his own fair share of missions.

"Lieutenant, I want to get to know the men who work under me." Mitch explained further. "Everyone in the YAD has been beaten down by life, to the point where they've decided to surrender their lives to a better cause. Tell me why you're here, with GUN. What had to happen that got you here, if you don't mind my asking."

Eddie looked down at the floor tiles before quickly bringing his gaze up to meet that of his new commanding officer. And, with a willingness that almost surprised Mitch, he obliged to tell his story. "When I was little, our house in Mayfair burned down. I was told it was an electrical fire, so I ended up in a foster home on Rivington Street. Well, there was this gang over there that liked to raise hell, and one night they decide to break in, and killed my foster family. I was in the bathroom when they came, so I hid in the attic, and used this old ham radio to call the cops over. Apparently the story floated over here to Hereford, and the rest is history." He didn't show any pride in the brief summation of his life, instead his voice heavy with regret for letting both his families die before him. Mitch recognized the shadow in the lieutenant's eyes. It was the same painful shame that had plagued him years before, wandering the streets of Vice City. But from Mitch's point of few, this intellectually gifted teenager of fifteen years old didn't have anything to be ashamed of. And yet he still regarded his loved ones' passing as his own fault.

"Well I'm sorry about that." Mitch promised, before reaching out with his right hand. "I myself am the victim of an unfortunate turn of events that left me without a family as well, just like everyone else. It will be an honor serving with you Lieutenant Stone."

Eddie shook his captain's hand, and cleared his throat. "So what is it that got _you_ to join GUN, sir?" The Brit asked in return, careful not to step over the fine line laid out by the formality of the rank system. "If you don't mind me asking."

"It's not important." Mitch choked on his answer, though in reality he wanted not to recap the events he'd put forth so much effort to forget. His time in the Mendez Cartel was the past, and his family was the past as well. All of it a pitiful first chapter of his life which he vowed he'd never turn back to again. "Dismissed."

Eddie snapped to attention and took a single step back, saluting yet again. The military gesture of respect was returned by the teenage captain immediately. Then, Eddie turned about face and marched along the same path that lead him to his place standing before the desk of his superior. He disappeared in the doorway, heading outside Mitch's office into the adjacent hallway. The captain took a moment to jot down some quick notes on the tale he'd just heard, before clearing his throat.

"Next!" Another troop bashed his closed fist against the open office door before Mitch responded. "Enter!"

Another teenager walked briskly into the small office, wheeling right in mid-step before moving forward several paces to a stop in the same place Eddie had occupied only moments before. He saluted.

"Master Sergeant Scott McTyler reporting as ordered sir!" This one introduced himself through a flawless performance of the formal drill reporting procedure, with a picture perfect salute that pleased the fifteen-year-old behind the small metal desk. Mitch returned the salute and nodded.

"At ease sergeant." Mitch allowed, watching him droop into a lenient parade rest stance with his arms hidden behind his back. "So, where you from?"

"Cambridge sir."

"Ah, another Brit! That's interesting." Mitch exclaimed, with a slight gesture towards the doorway. It wasn't really interesting, but there was the need for conversation. This sergeant, Scott, looked rather scruffy for a soldier. His hair was a bright shade of blonde, cut extremely short to the point where Mitch had at first thought he was bald. But he was taller, having been sixteen-years-old, measuring at five foot nine. "So sergeant, what are you doing here?"

"Pardon sir?" Scott was obviously confused.

"I meant, what's your story? Something sad and miserable brought you to GUN, and I want to know what it was. If we're to perform well as a team, we need to know everything about each other. That means strengths and weaknesses, emotional misgivings and what have you. So I want to know, why did you join GUN?"

Scott shrugged as though to say "it's not important", but answered nonetheless, lest he be berated by the officer who was aged one year younger than himself. "When I was little I was gonna be a boxer, but when I turned twelve I ran away. My father was an alcoholic, and he used to smack me around whenever he got drunk. Eventually I couldn't take it anymore, so I took his advice and left." Then he looked down, and Mitch instantly saw himself inside this teenager, for good reason. "I made it to London before things got bad. I started robbing people and stealing from stores to stay alive, since I was homeless. After a month or so I was arrested, and the Met turned me over to GUN, saying I had close quarters skills."

Mitch nodded understandingly, his face suddenly serious and unchanging. "I know where you're coming from sergeant. I've... done some messed up stuff myself." Then he held out his hand, as he had for Eddie, and nodded. "It'll be an honor serving with you."

Scott left after being dismissed, leaving Mitch with one new subordinate he was to meet. After jotting down some notes on his Master Sergeant's backstory, the captain stood up and beckoned for his next team's member to come in.

"Staff Sergeant Gavin Werner reporting as ordered sir!" His third and last guest barked upon stopping in front of Mitch's modest desk.

"Finally, another American!" He exclaimed with a smirk. "Where you from sergeant?"

"Los Angeles sir." Gavin quickly responded.

"Bah!' The captain scoffed. "West coast fool! I'm from good ol' PA myself. But, being a California kid, I'm sure you've got quite a story."

Gavin nodded. "I suppose you could say so."

"Care to share?" Mitch asked, cocking an eyebrow at the staff sergeant who was only a year younger than he. Gavin was fourteen, and around five feet or so. His black hair sported a couple cowlicks on the front, and he even looked younger.

"Sure thing sir." Gavin answered. "Well, my mom left me and my pop when I was young, real young. We stayed together, until he got shot during a robbery at a gas station. So, I ended up in foster care, going to a public school. I made some bad decisions and... well I really screwed up sir. There was this girl I had a crush on for the longest time. Stuff happened, and she got pregnant. I was all ready to be a dad, a little scared at first, but then she went and had an abortion. That got to me sir, and I got arrested for some pranks involving cherry bombs. GUN picked me up on an explosives premise, and here I am."

Mitch gave the American an odd look. "Seriously? You're how old?"

"Fourteen sir. I'll be fifteen in a month." Gavin answered weakly.

"Well, who am I to judge?" Mitch admitted. "I'm no angel myself. Nice to meet you sergeant."

They shook hands, and Gavin was sent out into the hallway as Mitch jotted down the notes for future reference. With that, he pulled out the top right drawer in his desk, and dropped the note pad inside, before clicking his pen and leaving it in a cup of writing utensils. He cleared his throat. "Alright, fall in!"

In a single file line, all three of his new teammates marched into the office, standing up straight at attention before their captain. Mitch nodded and rubbed the back of his neck.

"Well, now that we're all the best of friends, it's time to get down to business. Our team will be officially "on-call" tomorrow, so don't piss about tonight. You all know where the armory and the briefing rooms are, so there should be no surprises in the event that we're activated for a mission. We're going to be designated Foxtrot Team. Our assigned control officer is Colonel Harvey Stevens. Any questions?" There were none. "You're dismissed. It was a pleasure to meet you all."

* * *

Drew left noon the next day, just as planned. He'd only bothered to bring a single backpack full of equipment, and a small satchel to carry his poké balls. Finding his way to La Rousse's new plane was easy enough. He'd been there plenty of times when traveling to the many other regions. His mother had taken the liberty of booking his plane tickets for him, and a quarter past one Drew boarded the small Gulfstream V that was commonly reserved as a private jet for wealthier travelers.

The green-haired teen draped his brown suede jacket on the sofa cushions next to him before propping his left foot up on his right knee and reaching into his backpack. When Drew's hand came out, it was holding his paperback edition of Tom Clancy's 1988 novel _The Cardinal of the Kremlin_. For a half an hour, the book did a good job of holding his attention, and the beginning of the flight went by rather quickly. But soon enough the more pressing thoughts dominated his mind as he wondered the question that had been bugging him since late the previous night.

Was would he do if he ran into May?

Drew was, after all, competing again. And May was a coordinator, just like him. Chances were, if she too was traveling to the Amber Region, that they would compete at some point in time. The idea of such a thing frightened the green-haired teenager. If nothing else, then he feared the inevitable awkwardness. Some minutes later however, he realized that any discomfort or weirdness was one-sided on his part. May had no idea that her former rival felt this way about her, otherwise she did a damn good job of not letting it visibly effect her. Then there was the issue of his jealousy. Over the two years of inactivity, Drew had admitted that he was officially jealous of the relationship she and Ash supposedly had, and he wondered if any such emotions might screw with his ability to perform in contests.

There were many questions the fifteen-year-old had to contemplate. Too many unknowns for him to be comfortable. Gradually the flight turned into a mental game of table tennis, with too many questions and too few answers being knocked back and forth in his head. Drew finally gave up when the plane was an hour away from the Amber Region, deciding that whatever happened, happened. It wasn't easy to accept, what seemed like, a cop-out solution. But, he conceded, there was nothing else he could do. He'd lost his chance with May, and he'd just have to get over it.

In the remaining hour, Drew got fifty pages of the intellectually gripping conspiracy novel finished and read, before closing it with the bookmark inside and pocketing the small paperback. He was careful to stay on the couch during the landing turbulence, as the pilot brought the Gulfstream down onto the runway of an airport in, what Drew's map proclaimed was a nice little place called Beachwood City.

With a small coastline and several underwater grottoes, Beachwood City was a swimmer's dream. Spanning maybe a single square kilometer, the urban paradise was small, but well populated. When Drew stepped off the plane, he noticed plenty of people bustling around him, conversing or simply going about everyday business. The sky was wide and blue above the city, with the sun beating down just the right amount to create a comfortable warmth in the air. The green-haired teen was forced to carry his jacket over his shoulder as he walked off the airstrip, having begun to sweat while wearing it. His black shirt wasn't very forgiving in the heat either, but at least with only it he could maintain some degree of comfort.

After making his way through airport security, Drew was roaming the streets, following his small map to the nearest pokémon center. On the way there he passed the contest hall, which really was a site to behold. Having been constructed with a deep sense of modern architecture, the building's layout was based around the massive tiled dome. The sign outside advertised it as a stadium suitable for both winter and summer climates, thanks to the dome's ability to open up to the outside. Drew couldn't see the hall being used for any winter climates, considering the seemingly perpetual sunshine of the Beachwood locale.

He walked into the pokémon center several minutes later, leaving Roserade, Absol, and the rest of his team with the Nurse Joy at the lobby, before getting the key to a room which he could use for the time being. This time around he needed only walk around the corner in the lobby to a corridor with three rooms on the left. Drew's was the closest to the lobby: Room 100. His key worked fine, getting him through the door without a problem and letting him lock it upon his entry.

The jet lag between the trip from La Rousse to the Amber Region was minimal, but something had exhausted Drew to the point where he was already relishing the idea of dropping onto the room's bed and falling asleep. Which he did, not even bothering to find a place for his things, instead simply dropping his backpack and the empty satchel on the floor before drifting off, lying face-down on the bed.

* * *

When he woke up, Drew's first thought was to pick up his pokémon from the lobby. So, he shook off the last remnants of sleep and made sure he didn't look like crap before walking out into the corridor, closing and locking the door to his room before pocketing the key. He was just passing into the lobby when he saw her. Instantly he froze, like a deer in the headlights, not knowing what to do or say. And, just like in Commerce City, she was the first to see him.

"Drew?" She asked before telling something to Nurse Joy with a smile and nod. Then she walked over to where he was standing near the rooms, placing her hands on her hips. "What are you doing here? If I didn't know any better I'd think you were following me."

The comment forced his cheeks to flush a light shade of red while he stammered trying to find a suitable answer. "I just got here a little while ago. I'm going to be taking part in the contests they're holding in this region." He explained, hoping the truth would work better than a lie this time around.

"Oh. Well, here's to hoping you don't chicken out like in Kanto!" May poked him in the ribs with a smug grin before letting her bright, genuine smile return. "How are you?"

"Okay." Drew nodded. "I guess. How about you? I figure you're here in Amber to compete too?"

"You betcha." She smiled. "So, I guess that means you and me are gonna be going at it in two weeks. Just like old times huh?"

Her words made his previous blush look like ice compared to the deep red his face now adopted, and for a moment, May was confused by the amusing combination of it and Drew's stuttering composure. Then she realized the ulterior meaning in her statement, and she too blushed.

"You pervert!" She joked. "C'mon, get your mind out of the gutter. So, I guess I'll see you soon?"

Her rival and secret admirer nodded his response and parted, getting his pokémon from Nurse Joy before he left the center in hopes of finding a suitable place to train. There were two weeks until the first contest, in a town about five or six miles away called Cerveza Heights. If he was truly to compete against the girl he loved, Drew was going to be absolutely sure he was prepared for their competition. He wouldn't screw up this time, now matter how jealous, depressed, or infatuated she made him.

A/N: My primary concern for this chapter was the scene in Mitch's office. No matter how many times I looked at it, I kept getting the feeling that it didn't flow quite as I wanted it to. However, I couldn't take it out, since I required a practical way to introduce both the fact that Mitch is now a commando, and his new team members. The "sign-in" scene fitted the bill more than the other options I looked at, so I went with it. (BTW, for anyone who is curious, that formal sign-in process is more or less by the book according to United States Air Force standards. For those who haven't read my profile, as of a few weeks ago I'm a proud member of Civil Air Patrol, which is a Air Force Auxiliary organization which does a lot of search and rescue and aviation stuff. They have a cadet program, which I'm a member of, and we do that exact sign-in every meeting. I'm a pro! :) ) If this chapter bored some of you, I apologize. Chapter three, which is currently in the works already, will be much more interesting!


	3. The Girl I Used to Know

A/N: This chapter has actually been in the works since the last one was posted, but I've spent a lot of time tweaking it. Now, to address some of the things in Rising God's very helpful review. I don't necessarily write _for _reviews, but I do tend to hold off on updates and postings until getting some, primarily because some productive feedback helps to figure out what I'm doing right and wrong. So, thanks to his advice, I've been able to make some of those very valuable final touches to this chapter in order to get it to, what I believe, is a decent state. I've taken into account the pace of Drew and May's relationship in the story, in addition to the issue of Mitch's age. Which, since I cannot very well go back and change, I will simply have to work with later on in the story. All that being said, I'm glad the story is considered so unique, since that was one of the things I was trying for in the first place. Now, this chapter will feature some contestshipping fluff, mostly one-sided, towards the end. Due to the violence and action which is staple in Mitch's plotline, you won't be seeing much of him and his team for the next couple chapters. That's not to say there won't be anything that has to do with his story, but his character won't be making any appearances for a little while. I believe that's all I wanted to say. I know I still probably won't get much attention from the vast majority of the pokemon community, which I suppose is fine. As long as at least one person enjoyed this, and the handy reader traffic helps me make sure people _are_ in fact reading it, I can feel happy with myself. Without further ado, please enjoy the third chapter of the story.

-Chapter Three-

The Girl I Used to Know

It had become a routine procedure for Dmitriy Arkadeyevich Rascalov. He made his way across the Leaf Links golf course with a newspaper under his arm. The sunglasses did well to block the bright Florida sun from irritating his eyes as he made his way towards the designated meet point. He saw it a moment later: a small wooden bench out of the way, sitting under the darkened shade of a tall tree planted by the course's management years before. It was empty when he arrived, but Rascalov knew his contact would soon be there. This wasn't the sort of meeting one missed.

Rascalov paused near the bench to look around. The only other people in sight were a number of elderly people practicing at that driving range across the water. All he could hear was the sounds of golf balls striking the buoys and birds chirping above in the tree. Without any other thought, the Russian took a seat on the far end of the bench, unfolding his newspaper and crossing his legs as he pretended to read a column on the stock market's near-crash.

He didn't have to wait long. A man approached three minutes later, carrying a brown alligator skin attaché case with him. He took a seat on the opposite end of the bench, looking rather awkward in his white pastel suit and trousers.

"The weather is lousy today, don't you think?" Rascalov asked quietly, his voice coming in the discreet Russian accent of his native Moscow.

The other man looked confused at first, waiting several seconds before answering. "The forecast says it will be sunny."

Rascalov nodded gently, acknowledging the usage of the correct code-phrase. "Now that we've go that out of the way..." He muttered, still looking at his newspaper. "I hear you require my organization's services. How can we be of assistance?"

The man cleared his throat, reaching into the breast pocket on his suit jacket and pulling out a folded piece of yellow lined paper. "Here are the names. There are a few." He said, placing the paper on the bench between them.

The Russian was adamant in keeping his eyes focused directly on his newspaper, using his left hand to reach out and grasp the folded paper. Carefully, he placed it over the boring stock column and unfolded it. Written in blue ink, there were three names listed on the paper. Rascalov read them carefully and memorized them, reciting their spelling in his head before tearing the paper up. "This will set you back seventy-five thousand dollars, American. You have the money with you?"

His contact nodded and motioned for the attaché case on the ground near his foot. "Yes, it's right here."

"Leave it." Rascalov snapped. "Just walk away and leave this place. You will be contacted when the job is done. Thank you for you're time."

"But-"

"Goodbye."

The man frowned, but obliged. He stood up a few seconds later, before turning and walking off in the direction of a nearby gold caddy, which Rascalov assumed he'd used to get there. The Russian waited until the small vehicle was gone from his sight before he folded up his newspaper and stood, taking the attaché in his free hand and exiting the golf course in similar manner.

* * *

It was much the same atmosphere in Beachwood city, across some three or four hundred miles of ocean. The sun had been merciless all morning, and the sudden shade caused by a passing cloud overhead was welcome. Drew watched Absol perform his razor wind move without flaw, and nodded his satisfaction. A couple moments later, the teenager pulled himself onto the nearby tree's strongest branch, spreading out his arms and legs while the docile pokémon took five several feet below. Drew's jacket had been neatly folded and left on the ground where it would be fine; the temperature didn't allow for the extra layer of clothing. Their chosen training spot was a clearing in a wooded area neighboring the city. It was only a fifteen minute walk from the center, where he was still residing for the time being. From resting on the branch in the large oak tree, Drew got a marvelous view of the surrounding area. He could see the pearl white sands of Beachwood's coast to his left, with the shimmering sea stretching as far as the eye could see. Plenty of boats dotted the water's surface, where many of the city's residents decided to spend their days lounging. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a jet ski streaming across the gentle waves, leaping as it crossed every ripple. All framed by the green leaves on the tree. It would have been easy to fall asleep there, if he wasn't so focused on his training.

He couldn't let May beat him again. That had been decided. Failure was not an option, where success presented two favorable circumstances: he wouldn't humiliate himself, and he'd impress May. If he was to compete for her affections in any way, he had to establish his skill as a trainer. Ash was a formidable opponent to go up against in such an area, but it had to be done. So Drew had spent the past few days in Beachwood City preparing himself for the upcoming contest in Cerveza Heights. He'd leave the day before, spending the daylight hours covering the six mile distance. He already had his paperwork filled out and done with; his contest pass had been issued and sat in the nightstand drawer in his room at the pokémon center. It would give him plenty of time―ten or eleven days―to hone his skills.

Still, he _had_ to take some time every now and then to appreciate the area. Beachwood was beautiful, a fine resort city with a lot of recreational quality to offer. The beaches were an obvious place to visit and relax, and there were many outdoor cafés that offered decent food and drink. Drew had already gotten breakfast at one of them, purchasing fried eggs and pancakes before heading up to the clearing. That had been at eight in the morning. It was four hours later now, he noted while checking the digital readout on his watch. He'd walk back to the city for lunch, before coming back and spending maybe three hours more training. From there, he'd call it a night and―

―his ears caught the sound of claws scratching on wood, and Drew glanced downward to see Absol scraping his paw against the bark on the tree. So, he swung his legs around as though he would on a bed, and jumped down from his place resting in the tree. Standing upright on solid ground, he reached around and scratched the white fur around Absol's crescent-shaped growth.

"What's up Absol?" He asked while doing so, before shutting up and listening to his surroundings. His ear caught the sound of approaching voices, and he turned to see two figures growing closer from the direction of the city. A few seconds later he recognized them and swore. It was May and Ash, hand in hand, coming towards his clearing. Instantly he reached for Absol's poké ball, which he'd left on his jacket. "Alright pal, return!"

Watching the red beam reach from the button on his red and white poké ball shoot out towards the canine creature, Drew waited until Absol had dematerialized and disappeared into the small object before he grabbed his brown jacket and ascending back into the tree. Already he was thankful that he'd abandonned his old turqoise trousers for the durable blue jeans, as he felt a jutting piece of wood scrape against the fabric.

They walked into his sight a few seconds later, wandering straight into the center of the clearing where they stopped. For a moment, Drew thought they might have been just sitting there staring at each other, until he noticed Ash's lips moving in speech.

"So where do we need to go next?" He asked her.

May thought about it. "Some place called Cerveza Heights. It's a few miles away, so it's a little bit of a walk. That won't be a problem I presume... just more time we can spend togethere, hm?"

"You know it." They kissed a second later, and Ash's hand ended up on her face, cupping her cheek delicately. It made Drew groan softly from his perch in his tree, and he turned away to stare at the leaves swaying in the wind. Then he heard a _thump_ and noticed that Ash had backed her into the tree trunk as they continued their activities, apparently enough to elicit a prominent moan from May.

Drew didn't want to look down, lest it kill his appetite and make him seem a pervert, but he did anyway. What he saw was Ash's hands wandering all over her delicate frame as he groped distastefully for any part of her body that would enhance his experiencee. When he tightly squeezed her rear end, Drew found himself disgusted. They were proceeding in this, what was really a public place, without regard for who might have been watching. Then again, he couldn't bring himself to be really mad. He knew that, should he have been faster in confessing his crush on May, it would probably be him down there, making out without caring for consequences or common decency. Nonetheless, it didn't make him happy to be stuck in such a position.

He had to wait several minutes before they stopped, probably due to the necessity of oxygen rather than an actual interest in ending their little session. Drew heard a giggle as they rested against the tree, both lovers panting softly as they sat on the ground. Witnessing it from above, Drew wondered if there was any way he could get rid of them without revealing his presence, and finally gave up a minute later. It was futile to try.

It wasn't until after a half hour of waiting that the pair left, having just concluded an incredibly boring conversation on what activities they would partake in until the time for the first contest in Cerveza Heights arrived. From this, Drew learned that there was going to be some sort of party or soiree at the beach near some ritzy beachside hotel, lasting until eleven at night. It was primarily a human thing, Ash had said, but pokémon were welcome. Thanks to this, Drew spent an extra five or ten minutes in his tree contemplating weather or not he would attend this to-do. It was clear enough that he wouldn't be getting much training in that day, and as a result, it left his evening open. Plus, May would be there, and that gave him another opportunity to linger in her presence, wallowing in his self-pity as he wondered what cruel entity of fate had deemed him unfit for a relationship with her. He noted this wryly, with a half-frown as he thought about exactly how such a night would go. Once he'd decided that he would indeed attend, Drew dropped out of the tree, and left his coat over his shoulder as he walked, with his satchel of poké balls, back towards the city.

* * *

The seude coat looked infinitely more sophisticated than his purple outer jacket, Drew realized after looking himself over in the mirror. Then he remembered, that was why he'd bought it. After turning once, the green-haired trainer decided that he looked good enough to go back out. The party, or whatever they were calling it, would be starting in about ten minutes, and Drew wanted to get there a little early, to make it seem like he had a _real _reason for going. One other than the fact that he simply wanted to spend the night staring at May. As he walked back out into the lobby, he also realized that his inner thoughts were beginning to make him seem more and more like a creepy stalker, and Drew almost chuckled at it. Perhaps he'd become a little obsessed over the feelings he continued to harbor, but by that point, it came natural. After stepping through the door out onto the street, Drew shivered. Like any good desert, Beachwood City's climate did a one-eighty during the evening, the temperature falling to an average of fifty degrees. It made wearing his coat bearable.

Finding the place had been easy enough. A quick stroll along the beach brought Drew right to a beachhouse hotel, of which the rear deck and veranda had been furnished with a number of tiki torches and tables. The beach around it was also decorated in much the same fashion, littered with picnic tables and large umbrellas. Connecting all the torches were lines of rope or string, with multi-colored flags hanging and moving in the slight breeze that passed through every couple minutes. A decent sized crowd already populated the area, as the hotel staff clambered to fix up the last-minute details like music and stocking the bar on the massive veranda. Drew took a seat on one of the stools after arriving.

"Sorry pal." The bartender said. "We're not serving drinks yet. Just give us a few minutes, the guys are still trying to get everything squared away."

Drew shook his head. "No problem. I'm just here 'cause I got nothing else to do anyway."

"You coming with anybody?" The bartender asked next, taking up the usual stereotypical role of a night shift server conversing with his customers. He, like the rest of the staff in charge, was wearing a hawaiian style polo shirt with khaki shorts. Around his neck was a cheap seashell necklace.

"Well there _was_ this girl but..." Drew stopped in mid-sentence. "Nevermind, it's not important."

"She turn you down?" The bartender was curious as he began to unload various beverages out of a small crate behind the counter.

"Something like that." He looked around. There were several other guests conversing at the tables, waiting for the festivities to begin, with some others on the beach. His watch said five minutes until it "officially" started. "Not really something I want to talk about." _That's funny. You havn't stopped thinking about her in days, and suddenly you all miserable and laid-back about it?_

The bartender nodded as he shelved a couple bottles of some alcholic drink. "I hear that man. Girls, can't live with 'em, you know?"

Drew shrugged. "I guess so."

Three minutes later the DJ had some sort of cruddy bungalow music playing over the speakers set up in each corner of the veranda, and more people began to show. The bartender finished with the drinks, and concluded his preparations by disposing of the crate that stored all the drinks. The guests started getting a little more active in their attendance, some chosing to dance in the small area that had been cleared out for precisely that reason. It wasn't until another few minutes that Drew got bored.

"Tell you what." He started. "I changed my mind, let me have something non-alcoholic."

"We've got a decent punch, and root bear." Was the answer from the bartender, who moved towards both, waiting for Drew's reply.

"I'll go with the root bear, please." He ordered politely, sitting idly by while he waited for the beverage to reach the spot on the counter in front of him, which took fifteen seconds. A nice heavy glass filled nearly to the brim, with a wide handle.

It wasn't until an hour later that Drew's night actually took an interesting turn, which occurred when May walked onto the scene dressed in her usual attire, with the exception that her newer green bandana was gone. Her long brown hair hanging freely down either side of her head. He hadn't realized how much she'd shortened it in the two years they'd been apart. What he'd previously thought was much longer was now around shoulder length. He liked it better like this.

What made the infamous lump in his throat return was when she decided to claim the seat next to him at the bar. Hoping she hadn't noticed him there, Drew simply ignored her presence and continued to drain the glass in front of him until the root bear of his refill now only reached the halfway point.

"Hey!" She greeted a moment later, waiting for a response. Drew only cut his glance sideways, still hoping she wasn't talking to him. He didn't think so for long. "Drew? What's up?"

He turned his head to look right at her, and pretended to be surprised. "Oh! Hi May, I didn't notice you arrive."

"Please!" She crossed her arms at the statement and rolled her eyes. "I saw you watching me come in. What's up?"

"Absolutely nothing." He answered truthfully. "How about you?"

"Same, I guess." May shrugged and looked around. "How'd you hear about this party? Ash told me earlier."

_Me too._ He wanted to say, fortunately seeing the stupidity in actually speaking the words. "I... have my sources." He offered a moment of contemplation. It wasn't necessarily lying. He was, as some said, "omitting the facts."

"I guess that's code for 'I don't want to tell you' huh?" She smiled and waved it off. "No big deal. I'll assume that means one of your friends or something. So when are you planning on heading up to... what's it called? Cerveza Heights? I don't even know how to pronounce that."

Drew thought about it, then remembering his plans to train right up until the last minute. "Probably the day before. The place is six miles from here, I think. Shouldn't take that long at all."

"Yeah, same for me and Ash too." May announced, a grin on her face that probably wasn't necessary. Suddenly, the weird ability to spread happiness had returned, and Drew felt a slight sense of euphoria appearing in himself. Maybe it was just their close proximity.

"Speaking of which." Drew began, but didn't feel comfortable continuing. He did anyway. "Where is the new BF? Though I guess he's not really your 'new' boyfriend, hm? Presuming you've been together the entire two years."

"We have." May answered with a slight amount of pride. Drew swore silently to himself, and made a mental note never to press the matter again. "He's back at the pokémon center. Something about not liking large crowds, I dunno."

The green-haired and slightly nervous teenager snorted. "Why don't I believe that?"

"Yeah, I'm not sure why he didn't want to come. But it's no big deal." May smiled and shrugged it off. "I'm not going to let it stop me from having fun."

"Now that sounds like you." He answered with a smile.

"I will be honest." She stated. "I wasn't expecting you to be here. It's a pleasant surprise."

Drew smirked. "I'm flattered." He muttered in response, before taking a prolonged swig of his second root bear. When he didn't hear anything out of her for a moment or two, he placed the glass flat on the counter and looked over. She was biting her lower lip, and looking away. As though she was reluctant to say something.

"You know," she began. "To be _completely_ honest Drew, it's a little awkward being around you."

That surprised him. "Why's that?"

It was her turn to be surprised. May cocked and eyebrow and tilted her head. "Well I always thought you knew; way back when, right after we met, I used to have... I pretty much had the biggest crush on you. Like... ever."

_You self-centered jack hole. _Drew thought furiously to himself, right after he nearly dropped the glass of root bear off the side of the counter. He did a double-take. "You don't say."

She nodded, as her rival made a mental note to kick himself in the ass when he got back to the pokémon center. "Yeah. I kind of obsessed over you. I actually had a mental list of things to say whenever you taunted me. But since you had all those fangirls I never really tried to do anything about it. I guess that's why me and Ash started going out. I can't say it was a mistake. He loves me, and I love him."

Drew was both shocked and pissed at the same time, though his anger was fully directed at himself. How could he have gone through an entire region, periodically having encounters with―what was now―the love of his life, without even noticing that she felt more or less the same way? How could he be so self-centered and egotistical? All to reinforce his own self esteem. _You ass! You self-centered ass! And now, because you couldn't get over yourself, she 'loves' some other guy! _He was correct in thinking it was his fault, or at least he thought he was.

"But you know what's good?" She added, disturbing the rabbit trail his mind had begun to wander off down. "Now that we're not so insecure and naïve, we've gotten over that whole immature teasing back and forth. It's good to act normal around you nowadays. We're like friends now. Like me and Ash used to be."

"Yeah, okay." He answered, the irony dripping from his voice. _If we had that kind of relationship, we wouldn't be here right now. God, if the two of us ever got together... I'd never leave your side. _The thoughts were futile, May simply sat there smiling at him, unaware of the war being fought in his head.

"It's nice to be friends Drew. I guess everything worked out, huh?" She said, grinning ear-to -ear. Then, suddenly, she leaned across and kissed him, ever so briefly, on the cheek. Just a quick peck, but it was enough to send him well over the edge. His face lit up like a Christmas tree, and she giggled. "It's good to be seeing you again. I'm looking forward to that first contest."

With that, she left him sitting bug-eyed and redder than a tomato at the bar. The glass of root bear had virtually disappeared to Drew, as had the bar, the tables, and the music. The only thing that existed was that kiss, as though time had frozen on that exact moment, the feel of her lips still there on his skin. He touched his hand to the place in a slow movement, in a gesture that looked more cliché than he would have liked.

He made a decision right there. Armed with the information that May had, at one time, harbored the same feelings for him, he decided that he wasn't going to give up so easily. No matter how insane or futile it might have been, Drew was going to fight for her. He was going to do his absolute best and, some how, some way, he'd win her over again. Just like he had in Hoenn, many years back. _Watch yourself Ash Ketchum, you've got some competition. _Without giving it another thought, Drew paid the bartender, and returned to the pokémon center for a good night's sleep.


	4. Between Friends

A/N: You're only seeing this chapter because I've got too much time on my hands, and nothing to do with all of it. That, and I've been a longtime victim of rampant insomnia, and it's no rare occurrence that I'll be up in the wee hours of the morning. As a matter of fact I'm updating this chapter at... five of two in the morning. So, that being said, this will be the first chapter featuring an actual contest. Because of this, those of you who really love the show will find this to be a particularly enjoyable treat. I haven't played the games or watched the anime in _forever_, so if there are any errors in the battle scenes or descriptions then please, bear with me and mention it in a review. With nothing else to say, please enjoy the fourth chapter of my fanfic, of which I'm still trying to figure out a title. Go figure. :P

-Chapter Four-

Between Friends

The ten days practically flew by as Drew waited for the Amber Region's first contest in Cerveza Heights. It was as though he'd walked away from the beach party and back to his room in the pokémon center, only to start his packing right then and there. Thankfully, he'd been able to get in plenty of training. His team was in perfect shape for a contest, and Drew was grateful for that. He'd helped hone their abilities after two years of participating in no competition at all, to turn them into the most skilled group of pokémon a trainer could ask for. All of them, Roserade, Absol, Flygon, and all the rest, were ready as they'd ever be to face up against May and her own team. The rest of the competition would only be a formality. It was the pretty brunette he was concerned with beating.

Unsurprisingly, he didn't have much to pack. His satchel and backpack were both light and contained very little. The only problem was his coat, which was currently folded neatly and stuffed into the largest pocket in the backpack. Around three or four miles out, he'd need it. After reading brochures and inspecting his map, Drew had learned two things. Number one: there was a significant temperature difference between Beachwood and Cerveza Heights. Number two: this was because of a somewhat steep change in elevation from which the city had earned its name. Around four miles out, the map said, Drew would encounter what was not exactly a cliff, but would require some climbing. The only way around it was a shuttle bus that constantly transported trainers between the two cities. The problem was that it was currently at Cerveza Heights, which meant Drew would have to take the direct approach. He was hoping it wouldn't present too difficult an obstacle, with some help from his pokémon; Flygon in particular, who was getting better and better at his ability to carry Drew on his back. Should he come to anything he was unable to traverse by himself, he could use Flygon to help him get past.

Overall, regardless of the difficult terrain and varying climate, Drew planned to make it to Cerveza Heights on time and without any problems.

* * *

Three days earlier, Dmitriy Arkadeyevich Rascalov had been doing the exact same thing. A few hours of researching the first name on the list, George Tomlinson, revealed plentiful results. The Russian had a full dossier on the target on the first day. Whatever this Tomlinson had done that had gotten someone to order his death, however, was something Rascalov was unsure of. But, it was as unknown as it was irrelevant. His job was to eliminate the targets, not to document their personal lives. Fortunately, he already had the people in mind for this particular job.

They met in an all-night bar around the western side of Manhattan, a few blocks from Central Park. There was a booth in a darkened corner opposite the door, which Rascalov usually claimed on the nights of his patronage. With him tonight were two middle-aged persons in somewhat drab clothing.

"His name is George Tomlinson." Rascalov began, folding his hands as he leaned forward, as though to make the hushed tone of his voice less of a chore to hear. "He is forty-nine, and he works for the Department of Homeland Security. Anything else you should need to know will be in here."

He pushed the closed manila folder across the tabletop to the man sitting across from him. Hans Fürchtner, aged fifty-one, had been working for Rascalov and his "Agency" since its formation after the fall of the Soviet Union. He was a short, somewhat stocky man of modest build, and though he made a considerable amount of money killing for Dmitriy Rascalov, he continued to wear much the same clothing most of the time. This was probably due to his communist roots, having worked for the Baader-Meinhof gang in Berlin, more recently known as the Red Army Faction. The RAF was a brutal Marxist group of so-called "revolutionaries," for which Fürchtner had done primarily the same thing: killing those opposed to them. He spent little time leafing through the file before turning to the woman sitting beside him, his wife, and nodding solemnly.

Petra Dortmund, fifty-years-old, had once been a very attractive woman. That was back in her twenties and early thirties, when she'd moonlighted as a prostitute on the streets of Berlin. It wasn't until her pimp had died, the ugly result of a merciless bludgeoning, that she'd met and supposedly fallen in love with her current husband, who'd committed the act of liberating her from a life of turning tricks. She later learned, from the "noble" Fürchtner, that the man who'd sold her to many a drunken business had also decided to rough up some RAF goons under the premise that they'd been "muscling in on his business." Regardless, she'd married him as an expression of her gratitude, and their unholy union culminated in the birth of her inner murderer. The next week, she'd joined the RAF alongside her new hubby, and together they kidnapped a pair of commandos from the British Special Air Service. Both soldiers were later executed during a live broadcasting, after being tortured to the point where their death was probably welcome to some degree. That deed had put them on the map as a husband and wife team of brutally efficient killers, later resulting in their employment by Rascalov who, at the time, had just been RIF'ed from the KGB and left without a job.

"The man has a pacemaker?" Fürchtner muttered, repeating what he'd seen in the medical records. "I fail to see the great difficulty in killing a man who could die from a quickie with his wife. Why does your contact require our services exactly?"

Rascalov finally leaned back in the seat and breathed a sigh of relief, as though a huge burden had just been lifted off his shoulders This was likely due to the fact that their waitress had just moved to the opposite side of the room to tend to the other patrons, leaving no one to listen in on what they were saying. "I thought I had told you. The man works for the Department of Homeland Security, and I can only assume our contact has already drawn too much legal attention to himself as it is. Thus, needing our help in eliminating this most unfortunate thorn in his side. Nonetheless, you can't be this naïve Hans. You know this won't be easy."

The German paused for a second, saying nothing, before finally nodding in reluctant agreement. "Very well, I see your point. But just so we know, is there any particular way you want us to do him?"

"Not specifically, but there is one thing I want." Rascalov conceded after a moment's thought. "I don't want anyone to suspect this was an intentional assassination. Shoot him, poison him, smother him, however you decide to waste this slag, I don't want people thinking that this was geared towards him. Off the top of my head, you could stage it to look like an attempted robbery gone wrong, but I would prefer something a little more elaborate, you understand?"

Fürchtner nodded slowly and handed Tomlinson's file to Dortmund. "I believe we do, Mr. Rascalov."

"Excellent." The former KGB intelligence officer replied, reaching for his briefcase, sitting on the floor beside his feet. "Now, our contact has put down twenty-five thousand American dollars for the death of this man. As per our usual routine, you will receive fifty percent of that upon your confirmation that the job is complete. Have we come to an agreement, Hans?"

"I believe we have, Mr. Rascalov." The former RAF hitman parroted, as all three of them stood up to move towards the door.

"Well then, it was nice meeting with you again, Hans. Promise me you will let me know if you require anything during this job. I would be happy to oblige." Rascalov said, before shaking his subordinate's hand enthusiastically.

It was Fürchtner's wife, Dortmund, who spoke up this time. "Thank you, Mr. Rascalov, but I believe we can handle this by ourselves."

Without any further concern, the three of them left the bar after paying their check, and went their separate ways, the two German killers returning to their apartment in the city to plan their new assignment. Rascalov heard the next day, around eleven in the morning, that the pair had successfully tracked Tomlinson down and boarded a plane with two other individuals with them, to find and kill the man. They estimated to intercept the Homeland Security agent while he was on vacation, in the newly formed Amber Region, touring across the territory and on his way to a place called Cerveza Heights.

* * *

Drew was on the move as well, though his progress was currently obstructed by what looked like more like a very steep, very rocky incline than an actual cliff. Nonetheless, it reached a height of some five hundred yards from his current place at the base; difficult terrain to traverse, especially given the absence of any proper footholds. Still, in a total of thirty minutes, the fifteen-year-old pokémon trainer with no prior physical training had managed to ascend to what he estimated was about halfway up the incline, of which his map had given a rather modest description. It was much higher than the flimsy piece of paper had lead him to believe.

With a grunt of having the muscles in his arms pushed to their limit, Drew pulled himself onto a reasonably large ledge, having a strong branch that was jutting out of the rocks to use for leverage. He didn't bother looking down, not looking kindly on the idea of resurrecting the fear of heights he'd only recently overcome. There, he decided to take a moment to relax, lying flat on his back while panting.

Doing so gave him a nice view of the remaining height he had to climb, with no real footing that he could immediately see. Propping himself up on his elbows, he scanned the rugged surface with his eyes, seeing only a couple protruding rocks that didn't look very sturdy at all. Then, against his better judgment, he looked over the edge and stared down, figuring that he'd come to far to turn back now... and realizing that going up was probably safer than going down.

Sitting there, he remembered having prepared for such an obstacle, and unzipped his satchel. Removing a single poké ball a few seconds thereafter, he watched the bright red beam form a large dragon-type pokémon that materialized in midair, hovering near his ledge. Drew smiled at the creature before him.

"Hey Flygon." He said in greeting, returning the empty poké ball to its place inside his satchel, which he zipped back up. Then, hands on his hips, he sighed. "Remember that favor we practiced for, just in case I might need it? Well, it looks like I just might pal."

He gestured upwards at the remaining height of the frustratingly steep, dangerous incline, and saw a look of immediate understanding in the red visor-like eyes of the massive green creature. Flygon was big, with a hulking figure that had a length of what Drew recalled as six feet and eight inches In other words, big enough to carry Drew on his back, which is precisely what they'd planned. Without requiring any further explanation, the "mystic" species pokémon spun around in a swift and agile movement that, as always, somewhat surprised his green-haired trainer, who always marveled at the fact that such a large being could move so easily without being hampered by its own stature. When Flygon landed on the ledge, which happened to be just big enough to accommodate him, Drew pulled himself onto his back and settled himself between the two diamond-shaped wings, using both arms to secure himself "Alright pal, you know what to do."

Flygon, as expected, was able to ascend the incline/cliff with relative ease, refusing to even be inhibited by the weight of Drew sitting on his back. His trainer however, was rudely reminded of the eminent change in temperature some fifteen seconds or so after his pokémon had lifted off the ledge. By the time they'd reached the top, two hundred and fifty yards later, he was shivering in, what must have been, a climate of fifty five to sixty degrees. This was naturally a great contrast with what he'd just came from, which was sunny warm beach weather averaging in around eighty or ninety degrees¾closer to ninety. He was quick to get the folded coat out of his backpack as soon as his feet touched the ground at the top of the incline. Fifteen seconds later, he was wearing it, his upper body shielded from the chilly air around him. He let out a breath.

"Good job Flygon." He said in thanks, getting the same poké ball the dragon-type had come out of from inside his satchel. With one hand, he patted the large creature a bit while he worked the ball in his left, watching him disappear in the blood red beam of light that disappeared as quickly as it had appeared. Without another thought, he immediately started out for Cerveza Heights, already in view as it was two miles away. He'd encountered the incline four miles out from Beachwood City, leaving more than half of the distance covered. From there, it would be an easy walk.

* * *

Had Drew ever been to London, Cerveza Heights would have undoubtedly reminded him of it. In great contrast with the laid-bank resort atmosphere of Beachwood, it had a much more rustic feel, having been constructed with a Victorian-era style architecture in mind, effectively creating a very regal ambiance. None of this, however, disrupting the fact that the city was beautiful and impressive, with a tall clock tower in the eastern side that paid an obvious homage to Big Ben. Many of the streets were cobblestone, with the kind of street lights that looked like the really old green ones, but still ran on electricity. On the way to the pokémon center, Drew passed a black limousine with diplomatic plates that suggested someone from the United States was there, and moments later he spotted a silver-haired man in an impeccably well-tailored suit standing and having another similarly dressed man snap photos of him. More intriguing however, was the park behind the silver-haired fellow. He happened to be standing right in front of a large bridge that went over a pond, located in the center of a gated area with well-manicured grass and trees. Some of the bushes and shrubbery was trimmed to resemble certain pokémon, matching their images almost perfectly.

It took him two minutes to reach the pokémon center, situated not far from the contest hall in the center of the city. Upon entering, he noted the sizable crowd of other trainers located in the lobby, finding out from Nurse Joy a few minutes later that all the rooms had been booked. When Drew asked where he should go next, she suggested a hotel located close by, that was offering free nights for trainers who could prove they were in town for the contest. Well, he found it almost immediately after returning to the street. The building was easily visible two blocks in the direction he'd came from. Drew started walking towards it, reaching the rotating sign a couple minutes later.

As he moved quickly to the front doors, he heard a car pull to a stop directly behind him on the street. Turning around discreetly, he saw a bright yellow taxi with three men and a woman getting out of the back seat, probably grumpy from the tight fit. They removed some baggage from the trunk after one of the men paid the driver, and, when Drew noticed that it looked like they were having trouble, waited by the door to open it for them. All four headed inside without so much as a smile, with only the woman acknowledging Drew's polite gesture, even then, only with a curt and barely noticeable nod. Still, the teenager allowed them to get to the front desk first, waiting silently behind for them to get their rooms squared away. He approached the clerk almost immediately when he noticed the small group moving towards the elevator.

"Hi there!" She said. The clerk happened to be a relatively pretty blonde, with lovely hair that cascaded down to stop just above her back. Her smile was infectious, and Drew found himself smirking at her appearance. She was, after all, a quite attractive girl, probably in her late teens or early twenties. "How can I help you?"

"I'm looking for a place to stay." Drew said, chastising himself when he realized he was only stating the obvious. "I'm here for the contest tomorrow, and I heard you guys were cutting a deal with trainers. Think I can get a room for free?"

Blondie nodded courteously and answered. "If you can show us something like your contest pass or anything that identifies you as a trainer, we can offer you a deluxe suite for absolutely nothing. The only expense is room service."

Drew nodded and reached for the wallet in his coat pocket, opening it up to remove the folded piece of paper from one of the black leather crevices. He handed it to her and waited as she inspected the text printed on it. After a moment or two, she nodded and handed it back to him. "Very good Mr. Thorndale. I'll find you a key and you should be all set.

"Thank you..." His voice trailed.

"Erica." She smiled, perhaps just a bit seductively. "Erica Wheeler. It's very nice to meet you Mr. Thorndale. I have heard of you before. You're a great coordinator, you know that?"

He nodded, waiting as she snatched a small gold key with a key chain that read "419" on it, and handed it to him. "I'm flattered Ms. Wheeler." _But quite frankly, you're no May Montevale_.

* * *

Twenty four hours later, it was just about noon, and Drew was hustling to get ready for the contest which, according to the paperwork, was in thirty minutes. The Amber Region's contests were pretty much identical to those he'd taken part in before. Different pokémon were permitted for each round, meaning Drew could open the appeal with one, and turn to another for the battling. That was good, because he'd worked specifically with Roserade to put together a flashy performance that, he hoped, would do enough to dazzle the judges and bring him further into the contest.

Thankful that there was no dressing up required, Drew ventured out in his usual black shirt and brown coat with comfortable jeans. His backpack was left in the contest hall, with the satchel of poké balls held nice and tight against his waist as he walked the short distance to the contest hall. The building, which he'd passed during his arrival the previous day, was a magnificent example of castle architecture being put to use erecting a modern facility. Built primarily with strong red brick, the windows were shaped narrow and long vertically with open-out glass. On all four corners of the structure were small towers which Drew couldn't tell weather or not they were for show. The inside was much the same, looking ornate and rustic in appearance, with many modern touches. The break room was furnished with a plain sofa and coffee table, an armchair on the side and a thirty inch flatscreen television on the wall across from the sofa. The interior walls were identical to the exterior, towering red brick that betrayed the cutting edge technology employed to offer comfort and relaxation to the coordinators residing there for the time being.

In the break room, he found the two of them sitting closer together than he obviously would have liked. Ash and May were watching some kind of sitcom on the television, with May's legs curled up on the couch as she leaned against her boyfriend, who's arm was wrapped gently around her, pulling her closer. Drew sneered behind them and moved to take a seat in the armchair.

"Hi!" She sounded from her spot on the sofa, thankfully taking the chance to sit up and worm out of Ash's hold for the moment. "I didn't see you at the pokémon center. When did you get here?"

Drew smiled back and shrugged. "Yesterday. Nurse Joy told me the center was booked, and I ended up in the hotel down the street."

As per her usual excitable nature, May's eyes shined like a flower just blossoming, as she marveled. "Wow! Me and Ash passed that place when we got here a few days ago! Is it as nice as it looks?"

"Well it's no cave." He joked, referring the time they'd been fished out of the river and saved by a group of Wynaut back in Hoenn. "But I guess it does the job."

"You lie." She accused playfully. "It's awesome isn't it?"

He laughed at the comment and shrugged once more, taking a moment to ponder the question. "It's alright. Room service isn't exactly cheap, but you do get what you pay for. I ordered a New York strip for dinner last night, which turned out to be pretty good. I guess the room is good too."

May crossed her arms and huffed and irritated puff of air. "And here I am stuck in some overly cramped room, that I have to share with another person!"

_Swell, that means they're sleeping in the same bed_. Drew mused angrily.

"You didn't seem to concerned with tight spaces last night." Ash muttered, turning and smirking deviously at the girl with him, placing a kiss right on the sensitive flesh of her neck, to which she moaned almost inaudibly. She whispered something Drew couldn't hear, but he wasn't listening anyway.

At the somewhat lewd comment, Drew wondered if it was necessary that he rush out of the break room to the bathroom. Deciding that it was better to be sick in the restroom than all over the coffee table, he stood and walked out without excusing himself, and ended up dry heaving over a toilet some minutes later.

* * *

The appeal round went by rather effortlessly. Drew and Roserade had practiced the routine plenty of times in the places around Beachwood, leaving them just short of having every detail memorized. He'd opened stylishly, tossing the poké ball out into the air where it released Roserade, who, without having to be told, executed a fine magical leaf maneuver, shooting glowing tree leaves out from her bouquets which disappeared soon after in small flashes of light. They'd continued right into the rest of the routine, with Drew ordering a petal dance. The pokémon then proceeded to send dozens of pink flower petals out, filling the arena and quickly disposing of them seconds after with a concentrated solar beam that incinerated all the sensitive petals in an impressive display of controlled fire.

It impressed the judges, who all graded the performance with tens or nines. The simple, yet visually pleasing performance had a lot of good things. There were grass type moves that accentuated Roserade's characteristics, along with bright, impressive sparks and flashes. For several seconds after Drew and his pokémon left the arena, a the sparking remnants of the magical leaf and petal dance moves still lingered in the air above the arena. It was enough, Drew soon learned, to get him into the finals.

May ran up a minute or two later, congratulating him on Roserade's impeccable performance, proclaiming that she too was in the finals, and that they'd be squaring off against each other in a battle. He'd prepared for that.

So, standing near the doorway that opened out into the arena, Drew wondered what it was like for May. The way he figured it, she was probably on the opposite side of the contest hall, twiddling her thumbs or kicking her feet while sitting on a bench, simply waiting for the cue to head out and battle him. It was easier for her, he knew, not having to worry about humiliating herself in front of the love of her life who, incidentally, was probably standing or sitting with her at that very moment.

Maybe that could change. He tried to reassure himself. _Maybe, if I impress her, or be nice enough to her, she'll give "us" a chance. Well, no, that will never happen. May's sweet and emotional, definitely not shallow like other girls But winning is still more favorable than losing._

Suddenly, an announcer called for his presence, and Drew sighed as he stood up. This was it, the moment he'd trained so hard to face. He was going to fight May, though for him, the stakes reached much higher than a stupid ribbon. His talents, and his reputation were on the line, and it almost made him nervous. But he couldn't afford to be nervous, and instead, he took a breath and marched out into the arena. The audience cheered, because some of them probably knew who he was. Elsewhere he'd established something of a fanbase, mostly consisting of giddy teenage girls who were impressed by either his looks or his talent, though Drew always assumed it was the former. Perhaps it had spilled over into the populace of the Amber Region. Regardless, the only thing he was focused on at the moment wast the doorway May would step out of.

She came out several seconds later, as per the announcer's request that came over the intercom or whatever audio device allowed her voice to filter through the entire contest hall. May waved to those who clapped for her, posing once in a goofy way that made Drew smile. It reminded him of the May he'd crushed on years ago, and now loved. The carefree, easygoing, sweet-natured girl that had enticed him with her every move.

They took positions on the arena floor, which was colored a turquoise green as though it was tennis court. She winked at him, and Drew returned it with a smile and nod. Whatever happened here was something between friends. But for him, it didn't change that fact that he had to win.

Then it started. From May's poké ball came the humanoid firebrand pokémon called Blaziken, and Drew knew enough to pit his Absol out. He'd anticipated her choice, and though Absol didn't have any obvious advantage, Roserade wouldn't have fared well against the "blaze" pokémon, being a grass type. The white-furred canine "disaster" species of Drew's was a smarter choice, which he'd already made preparing for the contest. May, while a formidable opponent in her own right, was somewhat predictable in her battles. Since Blaziken was one of her staple choices much of the time, Drew knew enough to bring out Absol for the fight.

Somewhere along the line of pondering all this, the battle had begun. Blaziken raced forward to deliver a powerful blaze kick, which Drew was quick to have Absol avoid by sidestepping far to the right. While Blaziken was recovering from the attack, the combustion on his foot dying out, Drew ordered a razor wind. Absol leaped around to stop behind Blaziken, charging forward with the powerful glow of energy radiating in the rushing air around him.

But May's fire-type was prepared, jumping up of the way with the help of his spring-like legs and "landing" on one of the walls around the arena. Then, moving with quickness that surprised Drew, he ran around the edge of the wall above them whereupon May commanded a mega kick. Similar to the last attempted attack, Blaziken rocketed forward with his foot out, though there were no flames present. Nonetheless, the attack was well performed, striking Absol on the side of his head and sending him rolling across the floor of the arena for several yards. The quadrupedal mammal-like Absol tried to stagger onto his feet.

Drew waited briefly for his friend to regain his footing, and then ordered a night slash while Blaziken was still revering in the pride of his successful attack. Remembering that he had to remain stylish while fighting, Drew knew that the recently learned move would probably impress the judges. Absol's crescent growth began to glow, in a deep purple aura as he sprinted towards Blaziken. The tall, red pokémon went left to oblige May's order to dodge the oncoming attack, but Absol's quick vision spotted the movement before it was even made. Wheeling right into a turn, Absol darted towards the new location and propelled himself into the air, spinning around and swiping the sickle growth across Blaziken's chest, transferring the dark energy into the attack in flashy black-purple sparks. While the attack was less obviously devastating than the mega kick Absol had suffered, it did just as much damage. Blaziken stumbled backwards a couple feet, groping its chest with discomfort.

Without having to be told to do so, Absol followed up on the attack as practiced by performing an brief quick attack. Dashing forward with such speed that it made him nearly invisible to the naked eye, Absol rammed his head forward into Blaziken's abdomen, swatting his opponent backwards and into the nearby wall. The impact was significant, creating a web of slight cracks in the material.

May wasn't happy at the quick turn their battle was taken. With the clock ticking down on the screen above as Absol recovered from the attack, landing gracefully on his feet and looking like a proud dog, May was somewhat angered to see all of her practice going to waste. But, in her frustration, she turned to see Ash in the corridors backstage, mouthing something to her. Acknowledging his helpful tip, May cleared her throat. "Blaziken! Overheat, quick!"

The attack had been demanded prematurely, with Blaziken only hastening himself in his effort to pull his behind out of the wall. Instantly beginning to glow red, he released a dangerous plume of fire that erupted from his beak-like mouth, blanketing the area Absol stood in¾

¾but not before Drew managed to order a double team move on Absol's part. Similar to the way a Golbat might have, the white-furred pokémon moved with incredible speed, leaving behind a false copy of himself which took the brunt of Blaziken's furious assault. Then, Absol promptly reappeared as the streams of fire died down, hovering for a split second several feet above Blaziken. Drew barked at him for a second razor wind attack, and Absol was vigilant in his efforts to carry out the command. Plummeting towards the fire/fighting-type, he summoned the same energized wind around himself as he landed directly behind the "blaze" species, letting the sharp power of the air rushing behind him strike Blaziken head on. The move resulted in a massive upheaval of dust as Absol's landing impacted on the floor, and when the mist of dirt and other substances cleared, Blaziken was lying on the ground, defeated. The timer above said there had been two minutes left.

Drew was promptly declared the winner as May called Blaziken back into his poké ball. Drew did a mock bow and patted Absol affectionately as some girl came out and presented him with the ribbon for the contest. It was a God-awful thing, burgundy coloring with green trim, but it was one step closer to the Amber Region's grand festival and a much smaller step in winning over May.

"Hey!" He shouted at her as he saw her walking towards the doorway, Ash probably waiting with open arms to console her. She turned and glanced at him, seeing her rival waving her over to where he stood. Confused, she decided to humor his gestures, and walked across the arena with people still cheering in the stands around her. When they were standing together, Drew reached out for her hand. Realizing that it was a move of good sportsmanship, May smiled and shook his hand tastefully. She was surprised when he leaned forward and pecked her on the cheek. "That's for embarrassing me back at that party." He whispered into her ear as he pulled back, waving back at the people in the stands who still applauding his victory.

May was left blushing furiously, with a half-smile on her face as she stood, dumbfounded, by the risky display of affection. She stood there, long after Drew had left the arena, until she finally had the mind to turn around and head back to her own doorway, and back to Ash.

"What was that all about?" He asked, somewhat accusingly. May shook her head free of the thousands of thoughts that filled her mind and frowned.

"Oh nothing. Don't be so paranoid, he's just messing around." She smiled and leaned upwards to kiss him firmly on the lips, cocking her left leg as she did so. "You know I'm your girl."

Ash smirked, and nodded. "Okay, fine. But why can't he go kissing one of the other dozens of girls that follow him everywhere? These lips are supposed to be mine." He muttered, trying to sound more "romantic" than he should have been while he moved his arms to take her gently around the waist.

"He didn't even kiss me on the lips." May countered, taking her boyfriend around the neck. "He kissed my cheek, genius."

She wasn't surprised in the least when Ash repeated the gesture, touching his lips to the exact spot on her left cheek as he grinned. "You mean like that?"

"Exactly like that."

* * *

Had Drew seen their embrace immediately following the match, he might have been disgusted. But while Ash and May had been thoroughly pleasing each other on the opposite side of the contest hall, he'd returned to the corridors only to be promptly swamped by a small group of admirers. For a moment, he felt like he had as a kid years ago. Cocky, arrogant, and secretly in love. But he elbowed his way away from the obsessive fangirls as he made towards the break room, where he'd left his satchel of poké balls. Finding it after a minute of traveling slowly through the contest hall's interior, he immediately turned to exit the building.

Just as he left the break room, however, one particularly over-enthused girl happened to rush right into him, knocking poor Drew off his balance as his foot caught under a bench, sending his body falling forward until his head connected brutally with the corner of said bench. The impact was enough to knock him unconscious, leaving a small spot of broken skin on the right side of his forehead as the world went fuzzy.

A/N: I know what you're all thinking. "He left us with a cliffhanger, that bastard!" But I know what I'm doing, I think. There will probably be a decent wait until the next chapter rolls around onto the site, since I've got CAP this week and I still don't know what the hell we're doing. (I've really got to iron my BDUs, the collar's all screwed up.) That, and I've got some planning to do for a protest going down in a mall near my house. That will be on September 12th, but I'm not going to protest myself. Some left-wing hippies are trying to shut down the Army Experience Center, and _somebody's_ got to stop them, so I'm going down to "protest the protest." Hell, I guess I really do have a lot to do with my time. :/ Oh well. I hope you all enjoyed and, as usual, please review. (Feel free to wish me luck too. Those lefties love to get riled up at their protests.) Ciao.


	5. Trouble in Cerveza Heights

A/N: Okay, time for a disclaimer. This chapter and the next is where things will start to heat up. Action wise. Things will be getting violent in this chapter, so anyone who is faint of heart, or anything like that, might want to think about holding off for a little while. I realize that may be everybody, but seriously, things will be getting graphic for the next two chapters. There will be some fluff towards the end during Chapter 7, but there will be guns and violence in the meantime. Sorry to those who aren't into it, but really, it should have been obvious that this was coming. I will however be using the violence to introduce some sweet concern on Drew's side of things, but again, that won't come around until Chapter 7. The action-packed scenes of this chapter and the next will feature occasional scenes of contestshipping-ness, but read at your own risk. Of course, those who do read should review. Nothing more valuable to an author than feedback, good or bad. Also, there won't be an author's note at the end of this chapter, on account of how this chapter and the next were really supposed to be one, but got split since it turned out to be too long. So, please enjoy Chapter 5.

-Chapter Five-

Trouble in Cerveza Heights

Fürchtner took a seat on the sofa in their group's twenty-fourth floor suite, spreading the several sets of blueprints and maps gathered from the Cerveza Heights planning department on the coffee table in front of him. Sitting on the tabletop to serve as a paperweight was the black polymer frame of a Glock 18 handgun, with a 9mm magazine draped over it. He gathered the rest of his roommates and fellow assassins around a moment later.

Dortmund took her place standing at his side, while companions Ernst Model and Gunther Bock took the twin armchairs. The television was on, the volume turned almost to the max, with a window opened but the blinds closed. Any microphones in their room wouldn't be able to record anything valuable with the ambient noise dominating the room. Any people trying to look in their window wouldn't be able to get a good view. There was no way anyone monitoring them could know what was being discussed inside that hotel suite. It was all the privacy they needed.

Model and Bock were both former enforcers for the RAF, for whom Fürchtner and Dortmund had both worked for. Model was Dortmund's cousin, and Bock was his friend. Both were adequately skilled with firearms, and both had the basic knowledge needed when it came to their back alley cloak and dagger business. The four of them would be handling the Tomlinson hit together, and the money would be split evenly. That didn't get any of them a particularly large amount, but it wasn't slated to be a particularly difficult job either. The fact of the matter was, they were probably making it harder than it would have been anyway, but that was inevitable.

"You all know our target, George Tomlinson?" Fürchtner asked, tapping the photo on the coffee table with his index finger. He saw nods all around. "Well, we've recently learned that he was hospitalized yesterday during the contest down the street. We now know he's been placed in the recovery ward of Sweeney General Hospital, a couple blocks away. Apparently he had some sort of heart attack, and he had to have a doctor open him up to adjust his pacemaker. This is a golden opportunity. Tomlinson is weak, and unable to defend himself, which makes him ripe for the picking. However, Mr. Rascalov doesn't want anyone to know of our involvement, so we're going to have to pull some fancy shit. Petra?"

The woman nodded and placed her hands on her hips. "In an hour or so, we're going to have Gunther throw the switch in the hospital basement and kill the transformer that powers the building. With the electricity shut off, everything will be taken out. Lights, hospital equipment, elevators, anything that runs linked to that generator will not be working. That's why we had Mr. Rascalov send us these yesterday." From a reinforced plastic case on the floor near the sofa, Dortmund produced a pair of spectacle-like devices. "These are night-vision goggles. They'll let us see inside the hospital until the power is back on."

"After Gunther kills the power," Fürchtner picked up on the explanation of their plan. "It's up to Petra, Ernst, and myself to find and kill Tomlinson's bodyguards. We'll have to be sure to kill some of the hospital's security staff as well, to keep up illusions. Once that is done, we'll take seven hostages, Tomlinson among them. After some failed negotiations on the police department's part, we'll execute Tomlinson and escape out this window." He pointed to a line at the end of a hallway on the blueprints.

Ernst smirked. "I get it. We take all these hostages and try to extort the cops, so that way it looks like we only killed Tomlinson to show our resolve. I like the plan Hans. It's devious."

Fürchtner eyed the "young" Model, who was aged a midway thirty-two, and shrugged. "I suppose. But don't get cocky. Tomlinson is a high-profile guy, and his bodyguards are going to be highly trained, and also armed. Once we hold out inside the hospital for a little while, we'll kill him and make our getaway. Everyone clear?" The three individuals in the room with him all nodded. "Alright, everyone grab your things. We'll leave in ten minutes to get into position. Then, we wait. An hour from now we'll commence with the operation."

* * *

Everything was blurry. At first, Drew thought he was looking at clouds. Then he was unsure if he was even seeing anything. Slowly, the world came into focus. The "sky" was split into large squares which he identified as the tiles of a ceiling. There was sunlight streaming in from a window to his right, and there was a chair to his left, with something in it. Ahead of him was a door, and it was closed. The world was quiet and still, with only the occasional chirp from the open window. Following this, he had a number of thoughts.

_Where am I?_

_Is this a hospital room?_

_What happened?_

_How long have I been out?_

_What is wrong with my freaking head?_

None of these questions were answered until a voice coming from the direction of the chair on his left jerked him out of his thoughts. He tried to turn his head to see who was sitting with him in the room, but found that any movement whatsoever disturbed the injury on his forehead and prompted a harsh response from the abrasion.

"You're finally awake!" The female voice exclaimed, and Drew already knew who it was. May reached out and touched her hand to his chest, pushing him back down to lay flat on his back. "Take it easy. The nurse said you shouldn't be disturbed."

"What the hell happened?" He asked, managing to bring his hand to the spot right above his eyebrow to feel the wound there. It made him wince. The bloody bruise, or whatever the hell he'd suffered, was sensitive to the touch. The contact of his fingertips to the general area of the injury drew a sharp pain that abused his nerves.

May sighed, as though trying to deduce the end to a sadistically complicated mystery novel. "I'm not sure myself, but from what I heard, some girl at the contest hall bumped into you, and you tripped. I guess your head just happened to hit the corner of a bench. It sounded pretty painful."

"I don't know. I can't remember." Drew admitted, pulling himself up into what felt like a sitting position. "But, while we're on the subject. How bad is this thing on my head." He gestured upwards, not wanting to touch the bruise or cut again.

The girl leaned forward to get a better look, and for a second, Drew's breath caught in his throat. From his position, it looked as though she might have been leaning in for a kiss, and already the beginnings of a terribly mortifying blush were in place. "It just looks like a really bad bruise. You can tell it's been bleeding in a couple places, but nothing to bad. Relax Drew, you look fine."

So do you. He wanted to say, and the thought came to him as a wry smile. His potential embarrassment died down, and he shrugged. What a nice thing to wake up to. "How long have I been out?"

"Let's see. It's ten in the morning now, so... about twenty hours? I'm really bad at math." She grinned sheepishly and gestured towards the floor near her foot. "I got all your stuff from the contest hall. It was just this bag, right? I think it's got all your pokémon inside."

"Yeah, thanks." The words were genuine.

"Oh! I hope you don't mind, I took them to the pokémon center to rest up. I just signed them out before coming here." May reached down and picked up the satchel, then placed it gently on the bed near Drew's leg. "I figured you wouldn't mind. It was no problem."

"Thank you, May, really." He smiled at her and laid back, staring upwards at the ceiling, before looking himself over on the hospital bed. With the exception of his coat, which was draped over the chair May was in, all of his usual clothes were on. "I'm still in my normal clothes?"

"Yeah. Since you weren't an emergency, the doctors just brought you in to make sure you were okay and to get you rested up. They said you had some kind of concussion, and they had to monitor your sleep. Anyway, it didn't require you to be changed into a hospital gown." May explained, repeated only what she'd heard from the nurses she'd spoken with. "It was good really. You look much better in your regular clothes."

Drew almost blushed at, what he assumed, was a compliment. Before he was able to thank her, however, an unwelcome thought popped into his head, and he looked around for the raven-haired devil he'd become so familiar with. "Where's Ash?"

"Back at the pokémon center." She answered. "He wasn't thrilled when you kissed me y'know."

He chuckled at the statement. "I can imagine."

Suddenly, the room went dim. The lights on the ceiling sputtered and went out, the only remaining illumination coming from the sun outside the window. From what Drew and May could see through the small window in the door, the hallway outside had also fallen pitch black, with voices rising up from the other areas of the hospital. Drew looked around, wondering what was happening and where the staff was.

"Now what?"

* * *

Fürchtner saw the hospital's electricity go out from their place sitting on the bench across the street, and looked over to Dortmund and Model, who were both seated with him. They saw it too, waiting for confirmation from the group leader. All the light in the windows and doorways vanished, leaving the dim ambiance left. "It's time." He informed them, and they both nodded. Without another word, all three figures reached into their pockets and removed either a ski mask or a balaclava, pulling the garments over their faces and reached into the duffel bag Model carried on his shoulder. All of them removed a small Uzi submachine gun and a magazine, loading the latter into the ammo well before working the cocking arm and extending the folding stock. "Let's go."

All three sprinted across the street, moving for the glass front doors that opened up into the lobby. Fürchtner took point, going in first and kicking one of the doors open as he bound into the hospital. The lobby was designed in an atrium style of architecture, with the two floors above overlooking the reception area on the ground floor. Their first order of business was to clear the hospital of its occupants. Fürchtner accomplished this with a long drag of full auto fire into the ceiling.

"Everyone out! Now!"

* * *

Drew's eyes darted immediately in the direction of the sound, looking for the source of the rapid staccato noise they'd just heard coming from the general area of the entrance. He was confused at first, wondering what the odd sound was. Then a thought popped into his head, after his recollection of some of the action movies he'd watched as a kid. "That can't be what I think it is."

"What is that?" May inquired, more of a hypothetical question out loud, than an actual query to Drew. She looked around. They heard it again, a distinct and repetitive _pop pop pop _sound that filled their small room. It was beginning to frighten her.

"Oh my God." Drew murmured, throwing his legs off the side of the bed and giving his ability to walk a quick on-the-go test. He was able to maintain his footing, thankfully. "I think that's gunfire." He added, wondering if actual telling her his suspicion was a particularly smart thing to do. He didn't want to worry her over what was probably nothing.

"What?" May shouted incredulously, louder than she should have. There were screams now, shrieking nurses and doctors scrambling for safety wherever they could find it. The sound returned, followed by demanding shouts of orders or commands.

He staggered over to the door while she sat, and pulled it open, sticking his head out into the hallway and looking towards the lobby. Out of nowhere, a man in a suit ran by, bolting towards the staircase that went down to the ground floor. There was a pistol in his hand. As he neared the door to the stairwell, however, a man in a ski mask burst out of it with a machine gun, blasting the fellow in the suit with a volley of shots fired from the hip. Drew went bug-eyed in shock and pulled his head back into the room, throwing the door shut. He prayed he hadn't been seen.

"You're scaring me." May exclaimed, now standing like him. She knew the gunfire was getting closer, having heard it just on the other side of the wall. "Drew, what's going on?"

He didn't give her a chance to say anything else. "The window, now! Climb out and get out of here!"

"What?"

Any attempt for an escape was ruined when the door to the room flew open, as the man who'd seen Drew's head in the doorway barged in to survey the occupants of the room. The barrel on his Uzi was still warm from the shots fired seconds before, and on deciding that he didn't want to waste any more ammo, the intruder spun the weapon around and clubbed the green-haired coordinator on the side of the head with the folding stock. Drew's legs gave out under him under the impact of the crushing blow on his head, unwilling to hold the rest of his body up and dropping it like dead weight onto the floor of the small hospital room. The attacker planted the sole of his boot in Drew's back and looked over at May.

"You! On the ground, now!" He barked, waving his submachine gun around in her face. "Now, damnit!"

Not one for getting shot, May nodded and lowered herself slowly onto her knees, before lying flat on the floor. The obviously unstable individual swore under the fabric of his ski mask and looked around. Then, he reached down and pulled Drew onto his feet by the collar of his coat. "Get up! You too!" He pointed the Uzi at May briefly, before prodding the barrel against the small of Drew's back. "Out into the hallway, both of you!"

He shoved Drew forward, who stumbling out onto the hallway with May right behind him. The man with the gun was quick to usher them out the door, keeping his weapon trained on the pair His aim was brutally accurate and merciless, with the will to shoot them both alive in his eyes as he marched them down the hallway in an eerie silence. The hospital was now suddenly quiet... for a moment. There was a spasmodic discharge of gunfire that lasted only a second before it vanished. When they went around the corner of the corridor, the two coordinators spotted another individual similarly dressed to their own captor, herding a group of three patients like cattle with his weapon.

A third intruder emerged from one of the rooms, pushing a gurney through the doorway that had a man lying on top. Drew did a double take. It was the same silver-haired dashing man he'd seen having pictures taken in the city the day before, and when he turned to look at the man in the suit who was sprawled on the floor in a puddle of his own blood, he recognized him as the same man in the well tailored suit with the camera. The glimpse was only fleeting though, as the masked man with the Uzi was kind enough to return the barrel of his gun to its place in Drew's face. "Look forward."

It took him a moment to figure it out, but slowly the reality set in. Drew had to accept it. This was a hostage situation, and he was being taken prisoner, along with the girl he loved. Sitting there, doing whatever the bad guy's told him, the teenage coordinator knew that he wasn't going to let either of them die before he told May how he felt.

* * *

For everyone still inside the hospital, time had slowed to a crawl. Those who hadn't either been killed or had escaped were now crowded in one of the operating rooms in the second floor's intensive care unit. There were four attackers in total, with the last showing up shortly after the lights had been turned back on. All of the hostage takers abandoned their goggles and left them wherever they would be easily accessible. That was after they formed in the operating room to regroup. The one who seemed to be in charge was wearing a battered black coat with olive drab trousers. His black cotton balaclava had openings for his eyes only, while the woman who seemed to be his second-in-command had one with a hole over her mouth. Drew quickly learned they were German from the accent in the hushed tone of their voice. The other two seemed to be lackeys of some sort, taking orders without fault.

They split up quickly, with only the man in charge staying in the operating room. His right hand lady went out into the hallway to guard the door, while the last two vanished to go take up positions around the hospital. Some minutes later, one of them, the one who'd captured May and Drew, returned with a cell phone he'd likely scavenged off a dead body somewhere, and handed it to the presumed leader.

Fürchtner cleared his throat as the phone rang. The number he'd dialed wasn't the everyday emergency line, instead it connected him directly to the cop station down on the other side of the city, where the Cerveza Heights Police Department was based.

"CHPD headquarters, how may we help you?" Officer Jenny answered from behind a desk somewhere in the building. For a moment, there was no answer. "Hello?"

"_Grüße_. To whom am I speaking to?" Fürchtner asked, letting the Uzi dangle from its strap around his neck. Glancing at the hostages crowded in the corner, he saw some whispering amongst themselves and grabbed the weapon's grip, waving it at them in a frightening gesture that was more out of malice.

The woman was confused at first. "This is Officer Jenny. Who are you?"

"My identity is of no concern to you." The former RAF killer snapped, turning his attention back to the phone call "I am simply calling to inform you that myself and some of my associates have taken hostages at the Sweeney General Hospital in the northwestern end of the city."

"I'm sorry?" The magnitude of his statement didn't immediately set in.

Fürchtner didn't bother to repeat himself. "You will have a negotiator contact us within half an hour, or we will execute a hostage. You can reach me on this number, and I will call you once when the time runs out. Good day, madame officer." He hung up and pocketed the cell phone before turning to see Dortmund walk in from her post outside the door. She looked at him for confirmation.

"Is it done?" She asked him. He nodded.

"We have sparked a fire, Petra. The police will respond soon enough, and our 'negotiations' will commence." Fürchtner explained, a bit of pride in his voice. Their plan was working without a hitch.

His wife smiled under her balaclava and nodded. "Good. It is a shame we cannot truly extort these people for money. Capturing these patients was much too easy. We could make a fortune in these regions."

"My dear." Fürchtner countered, pulling the black mask off of his head and walking towards her. "When we get home, Mr. Rascalov will pay us much more than these backwater fools ever could, and we shall live like kings. We have come a great ways since the days of Karl Marx, have we not? Communism truly was an ill-fated ideology."

* * *

The "fire" Hans Fürchtner and his band of hostage takers had sparked turned out to be much larger than any of them had anticipated. Immediately following the telephone call to the CHPD headquarters, squad cars filled with lightly armed officers had been rushed out to the hospital, a psychiatrist to act as a negotiator with them. The problem was obvious, and immediate. None of the regions had a police force trained in hostage rescue, meaning that if negotiations failed, it left them with nowhere else to turn.

It was also quickly learned that, listed on the hospital's patient roster, was the name George Tomlinson, an American agent working for the Department of Homeland Security. This information progressed quickly to the embassy of the United States to the regions, located in La Rousse. The staff there hustled to fly a representative out to the Amber Region to support diplomatic efforts to negotiate the release of Mr. Tomlinson, but there was little hope on that end.

As such, Ambassador Michael McGrory, an Irish-American who's son was an ambitious young pokémon trainer, passed the intelligence on the situation to the United Kingdom, with the blessing of the President of the United States. Soon enough, CINC-GUN, the Commander-in-Chief, let the assignment float down to the Youth Action Directorate.

* * *

Mitch was surprised when he heard the phone on his desk ring. Immediately his arm was upon the receiver, yanking it it off the base and bringing it to his ear where he cradled it between his head and shoulder. "Captain Emerson." He waited several seconds. "Yes sir, I'll gather them right away."

He didn't wait to hang up, already pressing the button on his desk's intercom to let his voice filter throughout the barracks. "This is Mitchell Emerson, I want my team present in my office immediately. That means Stone, McTyler, and Werner! Now!" He stood up and searched the filing cabinet behind him for a spare folder. The door opened a second later.

"What's going on sir?" Eddie asked. He got his answer when Mitch turned and flew past him on his way out the door.

"Briefing room, now!" He called back as he marched out into the hallway. "We've been activated."

Foxtrot Team was gathered in the barracks' briefing room a minute later. All four teenagers took a seat, any seat, around the massive conference table immediately, with Mitch opening a manila folder full of blank papers. He drew a pen from his pocket just as fifth person walked in.

This man was Colonel Harvey Stevens, Foxtrot's control officer for all field operations. In his arm was a heavy polymer briefcase which he placed firmly on the table in front of him, as he took a seat at the head. Stevens had been born for an intelligence role, having served with the CIA under the operational directorate as an assistant to the Deputy Directory of Operations. That was after he'd been in the United States Navy's intelligence department, guiding teams of SEALs throughout the Gulf War. He'd been brought on to GUN a few years prior to Mitch's induction.

"Settle down." He ordered, though it was probably unnecessary. The room had been dead silent when he'd walked in, none of the teens daring to speak as they waited to hear about whatever was happening that merited their team's activation. Stevens undid the clasps on the massive case and opened it up, revealing a laptop computer inside which he removed and plugged into the room's powerpoint projector. "We've got a situation in the Amber Region. Approximately twenty minutes ago, a group of hostiles raided a hospital in a city called Cerveza Heights and took around ten or eleven hostages. We're still trying to figure more out from the police there, but so far as we can tell, all the bad guys have asked for so far is to speak with a negotiator. We don't know how many there are, who they are, or what they want. According to some witnesses, they're armed with low caliber small arms, meaning either submachine guns or pistols. Among the hostages is believed to be George Tomlinson, an agent for the Department of Homeland Security. He is your top priority down there. Your first and primary objective will be to secure Tomlinson, codename BEARCAT. Your secondary objective is to neutralize all the hostiles. Any questions?"

Eddie cast a hand. "Sir, do we know why Tomlinson was down there?"

"Officially, that's irrelevant. I will tell you, however, that Tomlinson was on vacation touring the Amber Region when, supposedly, he went into cardiac arrest at a pokémon contest. The Secret Service agents assigned to protect him rushed him to the hospital, where a surgeon conducted a quick surgery to adjust his pacemaker. That means if he's still alive, he's probably been immobilized." Stevens pressed a button, and a dossier on Tomlinson flashed on the screen of the projector. "That could potentially make things complicated, but I'm sure you all can handle it. Any other questions?"

There were none. Mitch was fast with his pen, documenting everything that had been said in shortened notes form, and closed his folder. Waiting a couple more seconds in case any questions came to one of them, Stevens nodded and gestured towards the door. "Alright, gear up. I'll see you all at the chopper in five."

"Yes sir!" Mitch sounded, before standing up with the folder under his arm. "Locker room, now! Suit up and get to the armory! Let's go people, move it!" He clapped at them add force to his words, then followed them out the door a second later.

In the locker room, all four teenagers discarded their recreational clothing and donned their combat uniforms. The standard issue apparel consisted of a RhinoPlate tactical vest capable of stopping pistol and low-powered rifle rounds, soft-soled boots, with Kevler knee and elbow pads. Thick gloves designed to withstand extreme temperatures were worn on their hands, to help heighten accuracy by offering increased weapon grip.

Once they were adorned in their combat uniforms, Foxtrot Team assembled their weapon load-outs and jogged briskly through the barracks, passing all the other teenager members of the Youth Action Directorate who looked on as their comrades exited the building. Some shouted their wishes of good luck. It didn't matter. He lead his team towards the garrison airstrip that was a mile away. There they boarded the C-130 troop transport aircraft with a helicopter dormant in the massive vehicle storage compartment.

* * *

The GUN aircraft passed over Cerveza Heights already beginning its landing sequence. The Beachwood airport had been contacted via the C-130's on board communications station and ordered to clear all runways for the team's advent. Their plane touched down a matter of minutes later, and the chopper inside, an MH-60K Night Hawk was wheeled out onto the solid ground and prepped for flight. The trained helicopter pilot signed on for the YAD climbed into the cockpit and asked the copilot for a preparation report. Five minutes later, the Night Hawk lifted off the ground, already bound for Cerveza Heights.

It landed ten minutes later, two blocks down from the front of the hospital, around which dozens of patrol cars formed the police perimeter. Yellow tape was drawn all around the hospital building, cordoning off the area while policemen everywhere darted left and right, trying to figure out what to do. Crime wasn't a major problem in the regions, and as such, law enforcement wasn't exactly very experienced. Thus requiring GUN's assistance. Still, they'd done a decent job of containing the hospital.

Mitch lead his team to where one officer was standing, a blue-haired woman in uniform standing behind him. The YAD captain cleared his throat audibly and patted the weapon dangling from his neck. "Excuse me?"

The male officer, who looked much more stressed than he should have been, glared at Mitch before handing the clipboard and megaphone he was holding to the woman with him. Then he turned fully and crossed his arms. "Can I help... you?" Upon closer inspection, the man took note of the teenagers' BDUs and cocked an eyebrow.

"My name is Captain Mitchell Emerson, this is my team." Mitch waved his free hand at the three teens standing with him. "Our control officer should have called ahead."

The officer's jaw dipped a couple centimeters, and he shook his head. "Wait a minute, you're the specialist commandos being sent from England? We're screwed."

Mitch narrowed his eyes, and stepped forward, measuring maybe a foot short of the tall cop, but adopting a look of stone resolve on his face as he held his firearm tightly against his torso. "I don't appreciate that comment pal. Now I can assure you, our team is highly trained in hostage rescue tactics and strategies, which is, as I know for a fact, less than anyone can say for your people. Not to show disrespect towards any of your officers, but why don't you just sit back, cooperate, and let us do our damned job. Alright?" Then he turned on his heels, and returned to his place with the team. "Otherwise, we can just hop right back on our plane and fly back to Hereford. I hear the forecast is supposed to be lovely tonight."

The cop, who Mitch noted was a commissioner from the insignia on his uniform, rolled his eyes and rubbed his forehead while staring at his shoes. "Fine. What do you need?"

The fifteen-year-old captain thought about that for a moment. "A command post. That's any secure location near the site of the hostage taking. Somewhere where we can plan and get ready to make our move. After that... blueprints on the hospital, maps, or anything along those lines."

The commissioner turned to the female officer with him, and gestured for her to go find suitable candidates for those things. Then he looked back to Mitch and muttered, "Anything else?"

"Yeah. Does this place have any surveillance cameras installed on the interior?" Mitch asked, scratching his chin while looking off into space.

"We think so."

"Alright, get us the footage from since the situation began. If you can. There's no pressure on that."

"Okay." Without another word, the commissioner disappeared to carry out the tasks, already unhappy at being ordered around by a "stuck-up teenager."

Mitch gestured for his team to sit tight, and walked back to where the Night Hawk had landed, two blocks away. He walked up to Stevens and waited for a few moments.

"Go ahead Captain Emerson, I'm just getting my bearings on this computer." The colonel beckoned him.

"Yes sir. We're having a command post established as we speak. We should have a secure location within fifteen minutes." Mitch explained, standing at parade rest. He was oddly comfortable reporting to this man, Harvey Stevens. Maybe it was because the fellow reminded him of his dad. Mitch shook the thought off. He didn't have a dad, not anymore.

"Good. Anything else?" Stevens asked, briefly looking up to glance at the captain.

"Yes. Can we get satellite surveillance on this hospital? It's only three stories, so we should be able to use thermal imagery to help identify where the hostage takers are." The teen was eager to carry out the mission, he realized. Mitch made a mental note to take things slow.

Stevens nodded, before closing up his laptop and climbing out of the chopper's cabin. "I think so. Give me some time, and I'll be able to get the CIA to let me tap into their recon birds. Figure about a half an hour from now, and we should have a pretty good idea of what's going on inside that hospital."


	6. A Deadly Dance

A/N: Well shit, it's been a while huh? So I guess an explanation is in order. I actually uploaded this chapter onto the site a while ago, but my computer crapped out while I was editing it and adding the author's notes. You know the how when something you've been doing for a little while is suddenly turned into a big waste of time? Well a big rush of that came on, and I just decided to leave the document on my user and officially add it to the story later. Well guess what? I never got around to it! (Big surprise there huh?) So yeah, this is pretty much the exact reason I said "don't expect daily updates." Oh, and it also occurs to me that I might have exaggerated a little bit in my note at the beginning of the last chapter. It's not _that_ violent folks. Imagine the kind of things you saw in chapter one and turn the two sides into terrorists and a hostage rescue team. You have a pretty accurate idea of the content of chapters five and six. (Six being the one you're about to read.) So if anyone wants to go back to check number five out now, go ahead and do it so this one will make sense. Unless, of course, you plan on skipping this one too. (Please don't. It's good, I promise.) The beginning might seem a little slow, but if you like any kind of action whatsoever, this chapter will satisfy you. (I hope) Look, I'm talking to freaking much. Just read, and enjoy. And before I forget, this chapter hasn't been subject to extreme proofreading or scrutiny, so please bear with me. It _might _be subject to being taken down.

-Chapter Six-

A Deadly Dance

The inside of the hospital had become like a massive waiting room. With him and May were six other people, including the silver-haired fellow who some of the hostage takers referring as "Tomlinson." Drew didn't know if that was the man's real name, but he didn't really care either. All he was focused on was keeping both himself, and his mortified love alive and breathing. To that end, he simply kept quiet and refrained from moving much at all.

May's reaction was much more evident than her rival's. For the first ten minutes of the ordeal, she'd sat there on the operating room's floor, shaking violently and whimpering every now and then. The German, who's face Drew had never really gotten a good look at, didn't appreciate this. Around fifteen minutes after they'd first been herded in the room, he stomped over to where the two of them were sitting in the corner, and aimed the weapon at the delicate spot of skin right between her eyes.

"Shut up damn you!" Fürchtner roared, obviously not wanting to deal with a frightened teen girl during his mission. When she only began to cry, it served to make the killer that much angrier as he swore in his native language. It looked as thought she was trying to say something, but no words came out of her mouth. Several seconds later, she managed something.

"I don't want to die." She whispered, tears streaming down her face. From his spot sitting right next to her, Drew's heart began to break a little bit. May was being emotionally broken down by this horrible person, and all he himself wanted to do was reach out and hold her, touch her, tell her everything was going to be okay. And he would have done so, but he didn't want to risk either of their lives, though the concern was mostly for hers.

Luckily, the angry German had been thinking precisely the same thing, or perhaps something along those lines. He pointed his free hand at Drew sitting beside her, and gestured back towards May's cowering frame. "You! Calm her down!" Apparently he'd taken note of how close the two teenagers had been sitting, probably figuring they were together or "involved" somehow.

Drew didn't need to be told twice. Instantly upon receiving the order, he inched himself closer to her and wrapped his arms around her body, letting her tears merge with the fabric of his shirt as she took refuge in his embrace. Her head quickly came to rest on his shoulder as she returned the comforting hug, still continuing to weep silently on him. Slowly, he rocked her back and forth to ease the fear built up inside her, trying desperately to let her know that he was there for her. That he would _always_ be there for her, and that nothing would ever change that. He wanted to whisper into her ear that he would be there, in ways she didn't even know. Drew longed to tell her, right then and there, that he loved her more than anyone else in the world. And, if it looked like things would get bad, he'd already decided, he would. If the threat of death became too real or too close, he wouldn't hesitate to let her know exactly how much he loved her.

Eventually, the solace he offered her began to take effect. The flow of tears pouring from her eyes ran dry, and she sniffled once. He heard her whisper something a second later.

"Thank you." May said, still terrified. But now, she knew that however much danger she was in, she wouldn't be facing it alone. She had, if nothing more, an extremely close and caring friend who would help her through their situation.

Drew nodded and began to retract back into his dormant stance sitting on the floor, but May wouldn't allow it. At his slightest motion towards letting her go, she only squeezed him tighter, unwilling to let the only comfort she had left leave her. And so he allowed her to keep him close, sliding ever closer across the floor to the point where there was almost no space between them. Their bodies were pressed tightly against each other, with no awkwardness present. Neither of them noticed that Fürchtner had long since left their side to take up his job of pacing endlessly around the operating room with his gun at his side.

* * *

Mitch had his command post five minutes earlier than he'd expected. The place, an empty convenience store right across the street from the hospital, offered both proximity and security. There was no danger of frightening the hostage takers, and they could keep the hospital in view while they plotted their assault. The egotistical police commissioner returned to his officers to try and keep things under control on his end. Apparently the hostage takers were demanding one million dollars American in exchange for the safety of the prisoners. Nobody would be able to pay it, but that was okay, Mitch promised. In two hours―amount of time the bad guys had claimed they'd wait until the first hostage was executed―Foxtrot Team would have a plan set, and would be ready to make their move.

The second thing requested by Mitch, the blueprints of the hospital, had come with the command post. The fifteen-year-old captain found them on the counter of the shop, right next to the register. There were three copies, with a couple pens lying on top of them. Mitch went to work, analyzing the layout of the hospital while his team did whatever they could to pass the time.

Colonel Stevens came in a minute later, carrying his laptop with him as he took a place behind the counter. "I've got a thermal scan of the hospital building." He informed Mitch, who stopped tapping the pen against the counter long enough to look up at their control officer.

"Let me see." He said politely, walking around the counter to stand next to Stevens, both staring at the image on the laptop screen. What he saw looked like a background of barely discernible shades of blue, with small blobs of red-yellow dotting various places. Some were fuzzier than others, probably indicated elevation. The blobs, which were heat signatures, were harder to see when they were on the lower floors, with the upper floors showing clearer ones. Already it was painting a very typical picture for Mitch.

On the second floor, in what the maps told him was the intensive care unit, Mitch saw eight signatures. Six were clustered together in the corner of the room, with another moving continuously in an unchanging circular pattern around the room. The last blob was the only one that actually looked like a man. He or she was spread out on an operating table, probably lying on his side from the shape of his signature. In the center, what Mitch assumed was the fellow's chest, the bright color faded a little bit, into a tepid bright blue.

"What is that?" He pointed at the weaker spot in the center of the lying man.

Stevens smirked and looked at the teenage officer. "What do you think?"

Mitch stared at the spot for a moment, waiting for the answer to come to him. Then realization dawned. "It's right in the middle of his chest." He stated. "That's a pacemaker isn't it?"

The colonel with standing with him shrugged half-heartedly. "Could be. What do you think?"

"I think we've got a room full of hostages with a guy who has a pacemaker lying down in the middle. I also think it sounds like a good candidate for our man, Colonel Stevens." Mitch answered, returning to the blueprints. Out of one of the pockets on his vest, the teenager produced a set of special stickers. He peeled one of the five that looked like a solid red circle off, and planted it in the center of the operating room on the map. Beside it, he wrote, with a blood red marker, "BEARCAT." His mind stalled for a moment trying to remember the exact positions of all the presumed hostages. "Colonel, could you please spin your laptop around for a moment?"

Stevens obliged, turning the laptop screen to face Mitch, who used the real-time image to place a group of stickers in the southeast corner of the operating room. It was difficult to place exact locations for some; two in particular had been so close together he'd almost mistaken the signatures for one single person. _They must be trying to console each other. I can't blame them. But I'd be even more scared if I was one of the bad guys. God help the bastards when we come for them. _A minute or two, Mitch had used the stickers to indicate locations for all of the hostages, with six in the corner and one in the center. He'd also used one of his red cross stickers to show the location of the constantly moving bad guy. Thermal vision showed all heat signatures identical, the only difference between one and another being shape and color to show what was hotter and what was colder. Despite this, a trained observer could discern hostages from hostage _takers_by studying any certain heat signature's behavior. The six crowded in the corner easily represented captive civilians―hostage takers tended to herd their prisoners in a single location for two reasons. One was to keep them all in view so none could sneak off, and the other was to more easily keep them under control. The moving signature was identified by Mitch as a bad guy due to his constant pacing. The fifteen-year-old could imagine the tango marching in circles in the operating room, keeping an eye on his prisoners.

"Can you zoom out?" Mitch asked Stevens, who promptly turned the laptop to face himself again. The colonel nodded, and panned out the image to show the entire hospital before spinning the computer back for Mitch to see. "Okay, right there. Zoom in on that signature." He pointed to a spot of yellow on the screen.

Stevens craned his neck to see what Mitch was pointing at, then pressed some array of keys on the laptop and the image closed on a signature right outside the operating room's door.

"That one's a bad guy too." Mitch said pridefully, before sticking another red cross onto the map. Next to this one he wrote, "subject two." With the other identified hostage taker, he'd used the red marker to trace out the circular pattern of his movement, before writing "subject one" next to it. "Two tangos identified. What else can the scan see?"

Five minutes later Colonel Stevens and Mitch had marked down two more hostage takers, both of whom were patrolling around the first and second floor; the third was completely empty. Which was good. The blueprints showed several windows on the third floor that would make nice entrances for his team. Mitch smirked deviously. It was all coming together.

"Gather 'round." He shouted, summoning the three remaining members of his team to assemble around the map, which was now covered in marking and stickers. He waited until they were all paying attention. "Here's what I'm thinking. The notes on these blueprints say that the second floor overlooks the lobby, so that means we won't be entering through the front door. There's some windows on the third and second floor we can rappel down to from the roof, and a back door in this alley," he pointed at a more discreet path around the hospital. "that we can use. Any questions?"

There were none. Every team member was watching intently, waiting for their captain to continue his explanation of the plan. He did.

"That is exactly what we'll do. Our team will be broken up into two elements. Element One, which will consist of myself and Eddie, will have the Night Hawk drop us off on the roof, where we'll rappel down to these windows on the western side of the building. While we're doing that, Element Two, which is Scotty and Gavin, will take the back door onto the first floor. Once we're inside, we'll move towards the operating room on the second floor. Clear?"

"Crystal mate." Eddie nodded, gesturing towards the door. "What do you say we get this show on the road captain?"

* * *

Drew was beginning to get scared. The man with the gun had started to mutter and whisper about money and killing hostages, and the green-haired coordinator couldn't help but wonder weather or not that meant his life was coming to the end of the line or, worse yet, May's was. He wasn't going to let anything bad happen to her, that much was certain, but he was trying his best to maintain hope that he wouldn't have to sacrifice his own life to that end. Which, he learned several minutes earlier, he was fully willing to do. A bullet in the head was a small price to pay for the assurance that May would be able to live on. Weather or not that meant she would do so with Ash was irrelevant.

She wasn't paying attention, he realized. Since the German bad guy had demanded her silence, she simply clung to Drew as tightly as she could. As if she knew what he was willing to do, and was trying to keep him from giving up his own life to protect her. So, May sat there, staying deathly quiet while she continued to embrace her old rival without any sign of letting go anytime soon. One thing was certain, however. Their experience in that operating room was beginning to have a profound effect on the two of them. If they made it out of there alive, which May fully intended to do, then she knew that her relationship with Drew was forever going to change. They'd faced death together, never having a doubt that they couldn't make it through without the love and support of the other. At the very least, they would leave that hospital the closest of friends.

But his natural selfishness continued to manifest itself in Drew's lingering need for some sort of romantic closure, and so he decided to simply tell her. It wasn't the best of circumstances, and there were plenty of better places he could have done so, but something inside of that fifteen-year-old boy demanded that he confess the undying love that he felt inside.

"May?" He whispered in opening, his mouth lingering right next to her ear. "I want to tell you something."

"Shut up." She snapped, her voice rising to grab his attention, without angering their captor. "I know what you're going to do. You're going to say some sentimental crap that you don't really mean, 'cause you're scared that we're going to die. I don't need that right now, Drew. Please. I need you to tell me... that everything's going to be okay."

Drew felt the salt of tears beginning to pour from her eyes, and knew the same would follow for him if he didn't respond. The idea that he'd hurt her pulled at his heartstrings much more than the possibility of dying without her knowing that he was in love with her. So he agreed, pulling her close against his body and kissing her head. "Everything is going to be okay."

May was silent for a moment, then she nodded slowly, accepting his words for what they were. "Thank you."

"Hey!" A voice boomed from across the room. "You two, keep it quiet! You don't need to be talking to stay calm."

Fürchtner waited to hear if they were going to object, willing them to give him an excuse to shoot one or the other. But the way they simply sat there in each other's arms, still as bronze statues, told him that nothing he could do could break their resolve. The only other time he'd seen that look in someone's eyes, the look the green-haired boy had whenever she showed signs of sadness, reminded him of how he himself felt when he'd first met his wife Petra, just a young girl being prostituted by some capitalist pig in a pinstriped suit. Well, the RAF murderer thought smugly to himself, he'd sorted that bastard out. A merciless beating followed by a long awaited gunshot wound to the head had done away with her pimp for good. And so they'd gotten married. It was true, that theirs was a most unnatural and strange union, but love wasn't always perfect. In fact, it rarely was. He snaked his arm up closer to his face as he glared at his watch. There was still plenty of time to kill before the cops reached their limit.

* * *

Mitch didn't intend on letting the standoff continue that long. The hostage takers had already been unreasonable enough. With a solid plan in place, the YAD captain had decided it was time for the situation to be brought to a swift, decisive end. The bad guys inside the hospital were in for a rude awakening.

Some time after he'd briefed his team on the plan, they began to move into place. Careful to stay behind cars or whatever they could use to mask their approach, the four teenagers made their way towards the places of their entrance. It was harder for Element Two, which was Scotty McTyler and Gavin Werner. They actually had to make it to the back door of the hospital without being seen. All Mitch and Eddie had to do was get to the Night Hawk still sitting in the middle of the street, two blocks down. All four got to their destinations within five minutes.

"This is Sergeant McTyler." Scotty chimed through Mitch's headset. "Me and Werner are in place behind the hospital. Ready to make our move on your word, sir."

"Alright." He replied. "Wait until I give you the signal, and we'll all go in at the same time. Element One is en route to entrance point. Stand by until further orders."

McTyler obliged. "Roge-o, sir."

Mitch climbed into the Night Hawk's cabin behind Eddie. Together the two teenagers made sure their weapons were loaded and the safety off. The standard load-out for a team was an MP5/10 submachine gun manufactured by Heckler and Koch. The weapon was a modified variant of the classic MP5 design, rechambered to fire the larger, more powerful 10mm cartridge while still maintaining the staple accuracy and feel of a 9mm model. In a holster strapped to their thighs, each carried a Sig-Sauer P228 9mm pistol. That was their sidearm; the backup weapon they'd use in the event of a stoppage in their primary firearm. On their belts were a variety of grenades. Usually, this consisted of one fragmentation and one stun grenade.

The chopper lifted off the ground without delay, and the pilot was careful in his approach. Rising to considerable elevation before moving towards the hospital, the chopper moved discreetly out of the view of the building's windows, to hover directly above the roof. Then, slowly, it descended in a snail-like pace to land on the roof. The two teenagers jumped out to sprint across the gravel-covered rooftop.

"Colonel Stevens?" Mitch began, touching two fingers to a button on his headset as he moved to fasten his nylon rope to the jutting eavestrough at the ledge. "Can you continue monitoring the hospital building with the thermal scan?"

It took a moment before he got his reply. "That's affirmative captain. I've got you're team's heat signatures now. You want me to keep an eye on the bad guys as you take them out?"

"Would you please sir?" The fifteen-year old asked, removing the clasps from one of his pouches to secure his rope. His manners weren't wasted on the control officer.

"Of course."

By the time Mitch climbed over the edge, Eddie was already a couple feet above his respective window. The two would be breaching through different windows. Mitch would enter into a hallway, while Eddie would end up inside a small patient room. They would link up immediately upon their entrance. The captain drew his submachine gun from its resting place around his shoulder. He checked all the mechanisms on the gun, thumbing the safety before he took a deep breath.

"This is Captain Emerson. Element One is in place. Sergeant McTyler, what's your status?" Mitch wanted to know.

The cockney accent of his Master Sergeant's voice filtered through the receiver on his headset a moment later. "Waiting for your word, sir."

Mitch nodded, and looked down. He was hanging from the roof's eavestrough, his feet planted just above the window he was waiting to head in through. When he was ready, he'd give the word for everyone to initiate the plan, and he'd swing in one his nylon rope, crashing through the window in a louder display that he would have liked. In contrast, he added into his headset: "Both elements, sound suppressors on. We don't want the bad guys knowing we're here until their lying on the ground bleeding." He removed, from another pouch, a long cylindrical object which he screwed onto the barrel of his MP5/10, at the end of the muzzle. When the silencer was securely fixed to the gun, he cleared his throat. "Alright. We execute in exactly one minute. Repeat, we move in one minute!"

* * *

Fürchtner had frozen at the presence of the sound. The thumping of a helicopter's rotors frightened him. The gradually growing and then fading of the noise was even worse. What had just happened that he was unaware of? Who was flying a helicopter over the hospital, and why? The police? The news stations? And where had it gone now? Too many questions, he decided. There was only one thing he could do really. He reached for the walkie-talking on his belt.

"Did anybody else hear that?" He asked the device, his thumb pressed tight on the button that connected him to their band. "All of you, stay alert. I don't know what these backwater idiots are planning, but don't let your guard down."

Drew didn't know what to make of the German's fear. Was it irrational? And what significance did that helicopter have? Did it mean somebody was finally coming to save them? Drew threw the thought away almost as soon as it had come to him. He shouldn't get his hopes up, he knew. The only way the two of them were getting out of that operating room, he knew, was in a body bag. The only other option was if the police agreed to pay the money, and he seriously doubted that. Now, if anyone had contacted his parents, that might have been different.

Fürchtner waited a full minute before starting to relax. Instinctively, he cast a glance Tomlinson's way. Perhaps it was a mistake to wait so long, just for appearance's sake. He could shoot the poor bastard right then, and make his escape with the rest of them, and still maintain the extortion sham. Unbeknownst to him, he'd never get the chance.

* * *

Mitch waited out the last ten seconds with bated breath. Positioning every muscle in his body to move when the sixty seconds ran out, he waited completely still. His fingers tensed around the pistol grip of his MP5/10. He held in his last breath and readied his feet to propel his weight off the wall. Finally, the moment came.

"Execute! Go! Go! Go!" Mitch screamed into his headset. Not a second later he leaped off the wall and let the nylon rope pull him forward, smashing through the glass window with shattered panes raining against the floor around his feet. His first order of business was to unlatch the rope from the hook on his belt with his free hand, keeping the submachine gun steady in his right hand for a few short seconds. Immediately he steadied his grip and moved quickly down the hallway before him. He sensed Eddie come up behind him, and knew Scotty and Gavin were heading in through the back door down below them.

"Element One, you should be coming up on subject three around this corner." Stevens warned, and Mitch remembered the additions he'd made to the map. As soon as he turned the corner, he'd come face to face with a hostile and―

―he saw him immediately upon rounding the corner. The hostage taker was carrying an Uzi in both hands, probably planning to go investigate the source of the shattering noise when he saw Mitch come around the corner with his MP5/10. He tried to react, but the fifteen-year-old was younger and faster, and he'd already been aiming when he turned the corner.

Mitch squeezed the trigger once, letting the three-round-burst setting on the fire selector pump out three well-placed rounds from the muzzle of the submachine gun. The 10mm rounds impacted against the man, who turned out to be Gunther Bock, ordered by Fürchtner to help patrol the other end of the second floor. Two of them struck the RAF enforcer in the head, with the third hitting a few centimeters lower, piercing the flesh of his neck. His body tumbled backwards, dead before it hit the tiled floor.

"Nice one mate." Eddie mumbled with a smile, following close behind his captain to back him up. "First kill of the day goes to Mitchell."

"One hostile just dropped off the screen." Stevens chimed, stating what they already knew. "Alright, now another. There's two left. One standing guard outside the door to the operating room, the other inside."

Mitch nodded to himself as he covered the distance to where the corridor turned left. "Who just got that second guy?"

"That would be me sir." Gavin sounded over the headset.

Element One moved forward, approaching the second corner carefully. On the first floor below, Scotty and Gavin were moving hastily towards the staircase that would take them to the second floor to form up with Mitch and Eddie. From his seat in the command post, Harvey Stevens compared it to some sort of deadly ballet. Each of the teen commandos representing a crucial body part in a well coordinated, well choreographed dance. A neutralized tango was a well executed pirouette or side leap. And then, slowly, all four members of Foxtrot Team joined together in the end of a soaring jump.

"Got one sentry outside the door to the operating room. Looks like he's fidgeting a bit." Stevens said into his mic. "I think he knows your coming. Be careful with this one."

Mitch looked to Eddie for a suggestion. The executive officer―XO―gestured once towards his belt, signaling a flashbang maneuver to stun the hostile around the corner. The captain and team leader shook his head. They'd need their flashbangs to clear the operating room. Then he remembered something.

"Colonel, if my memory serves me, there should be a fire extinguisher on the wall in front of the operating room's door." Mitch explained into his headset. "Could you please look at the blueprints to verify?"

Stevens, sitting in front of his laptop, reached across the counter and pulled the edited piece of paper with stickers and markings over and scanned the map for the second floor hallway outside the operating room. True enough, there was a small square with, in tiny lettering, "FIRE EXTINGUISHER."

"That's affirmative captain. These most recent set of blueprints says there is a fire extinguisher planted right outside the operating rooms door, about two feet down towards your corner." He explained, then he looked at the real-time thermal imaging and stared at Mitch and Eddie's dormant signatures. "What are you planning?"

"I'll tell you if it works." He muttered wryly. Then: "Sergent McTyler, are you and Werner in place at the stairwell door?"

"Yes sir."

Mitch reached up above his forehead and pulled the small set of trifocal goggles over his eyes, waiting to hit the switch that would active the infrared vision in them. "Okay, in ten seconds I want you to kick it open as hard as you can. Copy?"

"Yes sir."

Eddie watched as Mitch counted down the seconds in his head. Some moments later, he saw the door across the hallway swing open as a result of the impact from Scotty's foot, and wondered exactly what his leader was planning, though by the time he figured it out, it was over.

Dortmund had been staring down the hallway with her Uzi at a ready low, waiting for someone to come around the corner. Her husband was unable to raise Model or Bock on their walkie talkies, and the thought was that somebody was making a play for the hostages. When the door to the stairway flew open, her eyes darted towards it as she raised the submachine gun and fired a spasmodic burst of shots in its direction. Then, a fraction of a second later. A person's figure appeared around the corner and fired once in her direction. She was quick to turn her Uzi in his direction, squeezing the trigger longer than she should have, blasting the wall at the corner until she noticed that she hadn't been hit. Right before her, however, a stream of white foam streamed out of the fire extinguisher, which had been punctured by the carefully aimed shots of her new opponent. The small cloud quickly grew thick, obscuring her vision and prompting Dortmund to shell out the rest of her Uzi's 9mm magazine in blind fire down the hall.

Mitch heard the fated _click_as his target's submachine gun ran dry, and flicked the switch on his goggles that activated their infrared vision. Bounding around the corner, the goggles let him see through the fire extinguisher's foam cloud, revealing the confused figure of Petra Dortmund, who probably knew her end was coming. The captain shouldered his MP5/10 and fired a three-round-burst into her chest, sending her slumped backwards onto the wall at the end of the hallway, the Uzi dropping out of her hands as her chest went red with bloody wounds.

"You got him! You got him!" Stevens parroted excitedly from his post in the convenience store, unaware, as Mitch had been, that Dortmund was indeed a woman. A very _dead _now, but she had been a woman, the wife of Hans Fürchtner, who had just watched her demise through the window in the operating room's door. "Careful, you've freaked the last guy inside the operating room. He's running... okay, he's waiting for you behind Tomlinson. Check your fire when you enter!"

"Got it!" Mitch shouted in response, sprinting down the hallway, but stopping before he came in view of the window. Sliding into a crouch, he paused under the window and gestured for Eddie to come forward. The 2ndlieutenant nodded and pulled a stun grenade off his belt. They'd need it to get around the last guy. He cradled his MP5/10 and whispered to Eddie: "You take point. Go right around the operating table and waste him."

Eddie nodded and waited. He heard the shuffling of feet as Scotty and Gavin came up on their rear, coming out of the stairwell when they'd heard the shots die down. He waited for Mitch to nod, and pulled the pin on the flashbang, as the captain inched the door open―just enough for Eddie to chuck the cylindrical object into the room. Mitch then pulled the door shut immediately, waiting for the inevitable loud _bang _and sensing the ethereal white flash through the window glass. With that, he threw the door open inwardly, and watched Eddie bolt into the room, his submachine gun up in his arms.

For Drew it was a surreal thing to witness. He'd heard the shots first, looking up from his task of embracing May just in time to notice the man keeping watch over them curse in German and jump around to hide behind the operating table and the silver-haired man lying on top. That hadn't made Drew look away however, and he continued to watch as the flashbang flew into the room, blinding both himself and everyone else in the room. As the ringing in his ears from the deafening detonating faded, he heard muffled gunshots, no louder than the sound of a tennis ball smacking against a wall. Then he heard the sickening sound of bullets impacting with flesh and bone, and sensed something of a fine mist before him that came with a faint splattering sound. In essence, it was the personification of complete chaos. It wasn't until he was able to see and hear properly, that Drew was able to completely take in everything which had happened in that operating room.

The bad guy was now lying on the ground, his forehead torn open in a revolting crimson mess. His gun was several feet away from his hand, lying on its side with the strap removed. Standing above his corpse was a―teenager?―wearing a green military style ball cap. In his arms was a submachine gun, and with his free hand, he waved in somebody from the hallway. In came a second teen, this one having neat brown hair uncovered by a hat of any kind. He was carrying the same gun as his friend and, with him, two more followed him in. All four of them were decked out in some kind of combat gear with two patches on their shoulders. On their right, all of them had either and American or British flag. On their left shoulders was a shield patch with the words "Youth Action Directorate" surrounded by large white wings with a dagger in the middle. It was hard to believe, but slowly Drew came to the realization that they'd actually been saved, and everything was going to be fine.

Then he looked at May, and his expression went from one of pseudo-happiness to shock. Her face was frozen like a photo still, an expression of shock and horror decorating her visage. On the floor ahead of her, brain tissue was smeared in minuscule clumps around the hole in Fürchtner's head with blood leaking from her . Then she began to shiver. Violently. The sonic assault from the flashbang as well as its blinding flash had a profound effect on her psych. Tremors rocked her body and Drew did the only thing he could think of. Without a second thought, he returned to the position he'd adopted earlier in the day and embraced her as she shook with fear. His efforts to calm her were halted when some of the teens began to wrestle all of the hostages to the ground and bind them with plasticuffs. So Drew laid there, flat on his stomach and staring at a completely unresponsive May, praying she would be okay.

* * *

They were taken outside by the teen team and processed by paramedics and some hospital staff that had volunteered to stay around to help the hostages. All seven, including Tomlinson, were inspected by the paramedics. Sympathetic nurses examined May for any visible injuries or wounds, some offering to take her to talk to someone, due to the incredibly horrible experience she'd endured. Drew had refused to be taken away for his processing, instead having himself inspected only a few feet away from where May sat next to an ambulance.

"Are you okay?" He asked her, placing an arm on her shoulder that might have been seen an inappropriate gesture. He didn't care. He was only worried for her well being.

It took a moment, but she answered. "I'm fine."

Without another word she wiggled out of his caring grasp and disappeared to return safely to her room at the pokémon center. As he watched her walk away, Drew wondered where Ash was. Surely he had to know what had happened at the hospital, and surely he must have known that May hadn't returned to him in... how long had the stand off lasted? He'd have to ask someone and find out. Time on the inside had become nearly nonexistent.

He looked around and spotted on of the uniformed teenagers leaning against the rear fender of a patrol car. Remembering his second order of business, Drew walked over to where he was standing, fiddling with his submachine gun as the green-haired coordinator approached.

"Excuse me?" Drew began politely when he'd come close enough to be within earshot of the teen. It was his first time getting a really good look at his rescuer. The teenager, who's collar bore some sort of military insignia consisting of two matching silver bars, had brown hair and a few freckles here and there. His eyes were a cold blue, lacking much emotion at all.

"Yes?" He responded, staring up at Drew under the fringe of his eyelids. The icy blue eyes were locked on his guest.

Right then Drew began to fumble with his words. This young teenager, who couldn't have been any older than Drew himself, had the look of someone who'd witnessed some of the most horrible terrors of the world. It was as though his brutal efficiency laid not in his body armor or his gun, but in those cold blue eyes. They were emotionless, impassive, and unsympathetic. He seemed like the kind of person who made friends only with those who'd shared his sad story. It was a valid assumption on Drew's part.

"I just wanted to thank you." Drew began, wondering how he should go about the conversation. "You guys saved our lives in there. For that, I can't even begin to explain how grateful I am. Can you... tell me your name? I'm just curious."

Mitch stared at him, swinging his MP5/10 into its place around his shoulder. "Sorry pal. Confidential." He lied. There was nothing preventing him from revealing his name to Drew, but he _was _a teenager, and not having a name made him seem cooler. There were the beginnings of a smirk on the corners of his mouth.

"Captain Emerson?"

Eddie jogged over to where the two of them were standing, receiving a prompt death glare from Mitch, who'd just been outed by the sudden shouting of his name. The lieutenant surveyed the scene, and nodded once, turning on his heel and backing away to wait for his turn to speak.

Drew cocked an eyebrow. "Emerson huh? I can't imagine it would be to hard for me to figure out your first name." He said, arms crossed and wearing his own smirk now.

"It's Mitchell." He allowed, before turning to face Eddie. "And you're very welcome."

The two teenage commandos walked away in the opposite direction, talking quietly about something that probably wasn't any of Drew's business. So he stood there, repeating the name he'd just heard over and over in his head, trying to find any significance in it. _Mitchell Emerson. Mitchell Emerson. Who in the world is he, and who are his friends? Some kind of specialized SWAT team? A top secret and controversial initiative to train child soldiers? _at that moment, a chill went up Drew's spine, for he knew he probably wasn't far off.

A/N: Cool, Mitch's plot thickens. That line was written in response to those who felt Mitch was too young to be a soldier. A good example of "child soldiers" is featured in the Halo game series. (Master Chief is a "Spartan." This is a genetically engineered super-soldier trained for combat from birth.) For people who are more realistically oriented, terrorist and rebel organization operating in third-world countries commonly train children as insurgents. Sad, but true, which means if some kid can be given an assault rifle an told to kill, four teenagers trained and educated in small unit tactics can form an effective counter-terror team. Anyway, like I said chapter seven will introduce two new characters. They're FBI agents tasked with investigating the events that transpired in what you just read. Another minor character will be knocked off, but you should see it coming by now. (No one important, so don't go thinking Drew's gonna die or something extreme like that.) Alright, I'm spoiling too much. Until next time. Bye!


End file.
